


Star Wars: Unexpected Consequences

by KLCtheBookWorm



Category: Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Thrawn Trilogy - Timothy Zahn
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Disney Canon that I Like, Don't Like Don't Read, Dubious Consent, F/M, Fusion of Star Wars Legends and Disney Canon, Gen, Kid Fic, Reunited and It Feels So Good, background ensemble cast - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 15:27:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 38,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28833402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KLCtheBookWorm/pseuds/KLCtheBookWorm
Summary: Mara Jade returns to Luke Skywalker's life with a child who needs protection from the Imperial Remnant.
Relationships: Leia Organa/Han Solo, Mara Jade & Talon Karrde, Mara Jade/Luke Skywalker, Wedge Antilles & Luke Skywalker, Zakarisz Ghent & Original Female Character
Comments: 126
Kudos: 82





	1. Chapter One

  


### 1009:2:8

Lucinda lay on the trimmed grass between the main building and the base's storage sheds, and she pointed her macrobinoculars at the darkening sky. They were a present Mommy had bought with her first bonus working for Captain Karrde. Lucinda wasn't an official lookout—they manned the sensors inside—but it was fun to watch the ships take off and arrive. All the ships were on base, so that wasn't her current aim. She fine-tuned the scopes to see the visible stars before sunset. Then she'd have a visual for when she pretend-piloted off-planet. She had no reason to hurry. Mommy had a meeting with Captain Karrde. If Lucinda slowed down getting to supper in the mess, she'd get a later bedtime. Since no one was hurrying her up, maybe she could look at everything on the landing pads after she got her stars image. No one on crew cared as long as she didn't mess with any current jobs—including equipment and workers—to get the bulk cruisers or the Corellian Corvette back into space.

The unmarked path circled to the right from the two barrack buildings, past the cluster of four sheds before reaching the maintenance hangar, and then turning up to the main house. The buildings protected the path and the empty lawn from the canopy of trees surrounding the base. Myrkr was just as tree-covered as Varonat, but the animals were meaner and the people nicer. She couldn't stay outside after sunset; wild vornskrs wandered into the base and Mommy had made it clear that getting eaten by one was not acceptable. 

The screen cleared the blue haze and showed the inky blackness of space with points of light blazing so far away. She shifted her fingers on the controls, careful not to jostle the macrobinoculars and lose the image. Something moved into the scope, blocking the stars and the black sky. The macrobinoculars shifted, trying to adjust the change in focus.

"Blast it!" Lucinda growled and shifted her eyes off the scope. That was safe to use, unlike some words spacers had used that probably expressed Lucinda's frustration better. But Mommy had already made clear if she used those words, there would be extra homework explaining the origins of those words and how they spread across the galaxy and what they meant in the other languages Lucinda was learning. And after finishing that, Luci would scrub the base with a toothbrush. She looked up at the purpling sky. It looked like ship glare up there, but all of Captain Karrde's ships were on base. She adjusted the macrobinoculars again before aiming them at the suspicious shape. The scopes focused on a long triangular shaped ship in orbit above.

_THEY FOUND US!_ screamed over and over in her head, and she rolled to her feet. Her macrobinoculars banged against her chest as the strap around her neck stopped it from falling. She did what Mommy always did and clenched her teeth tight together to keep the fear on the inside. She knew what to do: get their things and run as fast as they could ahead of the stormtroopers and bounty hunters who were always chasing them. Who would never stop chasing them. Ice felt like it was squeezing her chest, but she pivoted and ran across the trimmed grass into the longer personnel barracks building.

She pelted down the hallway of identical doors to the door at the end of the hall. Her and Mommy's rooms were behind that door, facing each other like all the other rooms. Captain Karrde had the across-the-hall door added to give them more privacy. It slid open when Lucinda hit the controls.

Mommy wasn't there, but her packed travel bag was in her wardrobe. Lucinda grabbed it and ran to her room. Her travel bag wasn't as packed and ready to go. She grabbed clothes from the drawers in her wardrobe and stuffed them inside it by the fistful. Then she slid the datapad and her art projects off the desk and into the bag. The datacards holding all her lessons and stories and games went into the travel bag's front pocket. That would have to do. There was no time to erase that they had lived here. Mommy had fussed about never doing that step before they had to run, but Lucinda didn't know why they should do it.

She hoisted a bag on each shoulder and kept a grip on the shorter handles as she ran out of the barracks. The yard between all the buildings was still empty. Where was Mommy? Mommy was so good at coming exactly when Lucinda needed her, but ever since they moved to Myrkr, she had slowed down. But Lucinda was a big girl now. She could prepare their escape, so all Mommy had to do was pilot. She tore across the grass and ignored the macrobinoculars banging against her chest. They were tough; they could take it. Just like her and Mommy.

She ran to Landing Pad 1, which had a Skipray Blastboat sitting next to the maintenance hangar building. The unlocked main airlock opened into a tiny passageway between the cockpit and the main cabin. The main cabin was twice the size of the passageway, and fold-able benches lined the exterior walls. She paused, looking for the stowage compartments. A few crates were magnetically clamped to the metal floor of the main cabin. The last door led to the bunk room for the crew. Stowage compartments must be in there. She would stuff the travel bags in there and go get Mommy.

Her bag slipped from her grip and shoulder and hit the floor as she crossed the cabin. Her stuff flew from the still opened fasteners. "Blast it!" There was no time for delays! She grabbed her clothes and stuffed them back into the travel bag. Her foot kicked her datapad. It skidded across the cabin to under one of the fold-able benches. "Blast it!"

She dropped both bags on the floor to crawl after it. She couldn't leave it loose. If it broke banging around during flight, who knew when Mommy could buy a new one? It had skidded to a stop under the bench down for sitting against the exterior wall. She stuck her head and shoulders under it to reach it. Her fingers clamped on its narrow bulk and she felt vibrations in the deck plate.

"What hai you doing?" A male's voice, instead of Mommy's, said inside the cabin. Lucinda scrambled back and peered up. Chin looked down at her with his hands on his hips.

Behind him, Dankin rolled his eyes as he raised his wrist comlink to his mouth. "Jade, your kid was playing in the Skipray. Chin's bringing her in." He nodded at Chin. "I'll get it warmed up."

"I wasn't playing!" Lucinda scrambled to her feet as Chin grabbed both travel bags in one hand.

"Best be saving it, young one." His other hand pressed her back between her shoulders and steered her to the door and main airlock. "I got no authority over you. That be your mother and the Captain, in that order. Give it to them."

Mommy strode across the lawn toward the landing pad. She took the travel bags from Chin. "Get going," she told him before looking down at Lucinda. "Your room, young lady."

"But there's—" Lucinda pointed at the sky.

"Now."

There was no arguing with that tone of voice. Mommy must not know the Imperials were here on Myrkr. Lucinda clenched her fists and trotted as fast as she could without running back to the personnel barracks.

Mommy followed her into her bedroom, setting down Lucinda's still-open travel bag on the bed. "Explain yourself, so I can go explain what happened to Captain Karrde."

"The Imperials found us!" Lucinda couldn't help yelping as she pointed at the ceiling and the sky beyond. "There's a Star Destroyer up there, and I was trying to get everything ready so we could escape!"

Mommy's stern face softened. "Luci, no. The Emperor is dead, and the Imperials left don't want us. They want something out of the forest, not us."

She had forgotten about the Emperor's death in her panic, but it happened when she was only three years old. She set her datapad on her desk. "It's been good here, but this is when it goes wrong."

"You are too young to be so cynical, young lady. I think the Jade luck has finally turned up a better sabacc hand than mere survival." Mommy pulled Lucinda against her in a loose hug. Lucinda returned it by squeezing Mommy's waist. "I'm proud of your initiative, but you're grounded for the rest of the night. Maybe longer, depending on how mad Captain Karrde is. I'll send someone with your supper while I go back to our meeting and tell him you weren't stealing a Skipray."

"We would've brought it back." Lucinda let her go. 

Mommy smoothed Lucinda's braided hair, a matching red-gold shade with hers. "I'll stress that." She left Lucinda's bedroom, but turned at the door. "But you stay out of all the ships unless we're flying."

"Yes, ma'am."

Mommy nodded and left. Lucinda flopped back on her bed with a tremendous sigh. Her stomach growled now that the danger was past. Her travel bag slid off the bed and landed on the floor with a soft thud. With a groan, she rolled over and looked at her clothes and flimsi strewn on the floor now. "Blast it."

* * *

### 1009:5:35

The wake-up code from Artoo yanked Luke out of his dreamless sleep. It was too soon to come out of hibernation; that much made sense. "Okay, Artoo, I'm awake." He could use a cup of caf. His fingers hit the visor of his flight helmet as he reached to rub his eyes. "Is anything wrong?" Everything around him was dark.

Artoo stopped trilling and gave an anxious-sounding warble instead. Luke's blurry eyes realized he was in the X-wing's cockpit with all the systems shut down except power for Artoo and minimal life support for himself. The Imperial Star Destroyer _Chimera_ had almost captured them, and the risky maneuver he had done to escape the tractor beam had broken the hyperdrive units and fried the subspace radio, leaving them stranded in deep space. Artoo was supposed to be winding a new subspace radio antenna while he conserved resources in Jedi hibernation. He twisted to look back at the droid.

He twitched in surprise. Another ship was bearing down on them, a mid-sized, slightly dilapidated-looking Corellian bulk freighter.

Adrenaline surge replaced his need for caf as he spun back around. He flipped the power switches for the shortcut powering sequence. That took nearly fifteen minutes from a cold start to any serious possibility of flight. Force willing, the intruder was friendly. Still, best not to look defenseless.

He turned the X-wing to face the approaching ship with the emergency maneuvering jets. The scopes and sensors returned information as they powered on and confirmed what he saw out the viewport. Not the class of ship the Imperials typically used, nor was their code coming up on the transponder. He didn't see any Imperial markings on its hull. So what was he facing, smuggler or outright pirate?

Artoo warbled his calculations on how fast the bulk freighter had slowed.

"Yes, I noticed that, too," Luke said. "But a normal bulk freighter might be capable of pulling that kind of deceleration if it was empty. Why don't you do a quick analysis of the sensor readings? See if you can spot any weapons emplacements."

The droid beeped affirmatively, and Luke gave the other instruments a scan. Primary laser cannon capacitors were at half charge now, even though he was down to three working cannons now. Main sublight drive was halfway through its preflight sequence.

Comm signal flashed that he was being hailed. He flipped on the receiver. "—need assistance?" A female voice asked. "Repeating: unidentified starfighter, this is the freighter _Wild Karrde_. Do you need assistance?"

" _Wild Karrde_ , this is New Republic X-wing AA-589," Luke told her. "Yes, I could use some help."

"Acknowledged, X-wing. What seems to be the problem?"

"Hyperdrive." Luke watched the ship as it continued its approach. Its pilot had responded to his rotation with a sidling drift so the _Wild Karrde_ was no longer in line with the X-wing's lasers. Probably just being cautious in case he was bait for an ambush, unless they were lining him up with a hidden armament. "I've lost both motivators," he continued. "Cracked shield cases, probably some other problems, too. I don't suppose you'd be carrying any spares?"

"Not for a ship that size." She paused for a noticeable moment. "I'm instructed to tell you that if you'd care to come aboard, we can offer you passage to our destination system."

What choice did he have? Still, he stretched out with the Force to measure the emotions behind the words. He didn't detect any deceit. "Sounds good," he said. "Any chance you could take my ship too?"

Her cool tone went dry. "I doubt you could afford our shipping rates. I'll check with the captain, but don't get your hopes up. We'd have to take it in tow, anyway—our holds are full at the moment."

Luke's lips twitched with that information. A fully loaded bulk freighter couldn't have managed the deceleration profile Artoo had recorded earlier. He still wasn't detecting deception from her. Maybe their drive system had undergone a massive upgrade, but the only ones who'd want to spend that kind of credit were smugglers, pirates, or someone who needed a disguised warship.

And the New Republic had no disguised warships.

The other pilot spoke. "If you'll hold your present position, X-wing, we'll move up close enough to throw a force cylinder out to you. Unless you'd rather suit up and spacewalk across."

"The cylinder sounds fastest," Luke said. He decided to keep her talking; maybe she would give him a clue as to what the other ship was. "I don't suppose either of us has any reason to hang around this place. How did you wind up out here, anyway?"

"We can handle a limited amount of baggage," she continued. "I imagine you'll want to bring your astromech droid along, too."

"Yes, I will," he answered.

"All right, stand by. The captain says the transport fee will be five thousand."

"Understood," Luke said as he unstrapped his restraints. He put the seals for his helmet and gloves into his flight suit's chest pockets under his flak vest. Accidents could always happen, even though a force cylinder to travel between ships was relatively foolproof. But shutting it down halfway through would be the simplest way for the _Wild Karrde_ 's crew to pick up a free X-wing. He paused in his preparations to strain his senses toward the larger ship. There was something wrong with the crew; something he could feel but couldn't target lock.

Artoo warbled his observation anxiously. 

"No, she didn't answer the question," Luke agreed. "But I can't think of any legitimate reason for them to be out this far. Can you?"

The droid moaned. The translation came up on the scope. "No, and we are attractive to pirates."

"Agreed. But refusing the offer doesn't buy us anything at all. We'll just have to stay alert." He pulled out his blaster from the other side pouch, checked its power level, and slid it into the holster on his flight suit belt. His comlink went into another pocket, probably unnecessary until he reached _Wild Karrde_ 's destination and needed to arrange transportation back to Coruscant. An emergency survival pack attached to his belt behind his back, awkward in the cramped quarters. Last, he pulled out his lightsaber and fastened it to his belt.

"Okay, X-wing, we've got the cylinder established," the _Wild Karrde_ 's spokesperson said. "Whenever you're ready."

The _Wild Karrde_ had rolled so the small docking bay on its port side was above him, its outer door gaping invitingly. According to the X-wing's instruments, there was a corridor of air between the two ships, and he took a deep breath. "Here we go, Artoo," he said before popping the canopy.

A puff of air brushed against his lower exposed face as the air pressures equalized. With a gentle push, he eased up and out and gripped the edge of the canopy to turn around. Artoo had ejected from his socket and was using his directional jets to move toward Luke, making unhappy noises about the whole situation.

"I've got you, Artoo." Luke reached out with the Force and pulled the droid toward him. He looked up before bending his knees and pushed off.

He reached the airlock inside a half second ahead of Artoo, grabbed the straps fastened to the walls, and brought them both to a smooth halt with the Force. The outer lock door slid shut while they were still moving. Gravity came back, easy enough for him to adjust his stance to it, and a moment later the inner door slid open.

A young man dressed in a casual coverall of an unfamiliar cut waited for them. "Welcome aboard the _Wild Karrde_ ," he said with a nod. "If you'll follow me, the captain would like to see you." Without waiting for a reply, he turned and opened an internal door heading fore.

"Come on, Artoo," Luke said softly as he followed their guide into a small corridor through repulsorlift generators to a turbolift nestled between them. They rode up multiple decks, but the crewer blocked sight of the control panel.

Luke reached out with the Force for a quick survey. There were four others aboard, aside from their guide, all of them in the forward sections. Behind him, the aft sections were oddly dark. He shook his head, but the strange sensation remained in place. A potential aftereffect of the long hibernation. Han and Chewie had both independently opined that depending on the hibernation trances to get through long hyperspace jumps wasn't good for him and he should upgrade to a larger ship, one with an actual bunk. Maybe they had a point. Something to check on later. He was certain there were no crew members or droids unaccounted for.

The turbolift stopped, and the guide led them into a corridor heading aft towards the oddly dark section. He stopped at a door starboard of the turbolift. The door slid open as the guide stepped aside. "Captain Karrde will see you now." He waved toward the opening.

"Thank you." Luke nodded to him. With Artoo bumping against his legs, he stepped inside an office of sorts. What looked like sophisticated communications and encrypt equipment took up most of its wall space, and a massive desk/console combination filled the center with narrow paths to get around it.

Seated behind it, watching Luke's entrance, was a slender man with short gray hair streaked with dark brown that it had been earlier in his life. The middle-aged man's skin visible around his gray goatee was an olive shade, darker than Luke's tan. "Good evening," he said in a modulated voice. "I'm Talon Karrde." His brown eyes flicked up and down Luke. "And you, I presume, are General Luke Skywalker."

How in the worlds had he known that? Luke had only used his X-wing designation. "Private citizen Skywalker," he said, keeping his voice just as calm. "I resigned my Alliance commission nearly four years ago."

The corners of Karrde's mouth twitched to almost a smile. "I stand corrected. I must say, you've certainly found a good place to get away from it all."

Luke answered the unasked _how did you end up here_ question. "I had some help choosing it. A small run-in with an Imperial Star Destroyer about half a light-year away."

"Ah," Karrde said, with no surprise that Luke could see or sense. "Yes, the Empire is still active in this part of the galaxy. Growing more so, too, particularly of late." He tilted his head to the side, but his gaze did not leave Luke's face. "Though I presume you've already noticed that. Incidentally, it looks like we'll be able to take your ship in tow, after all. I'm having the cables rigged now."

"Thank you." The skin on the back of his neck was prickling from Karrde's lack of a reaction. A Star Destroyer in the area caused reactions, especially to anyone operating in the Fringe. Unless Karrde worked the Fringe for the Imperials. That would come clear soon enough. "Allow me to thank you for the rescue," he continued. "Artoo and I are lucky you happened along."

"And Artoo is—? Oh, your astromech droid." His brown eyes flicked down to look at the droid before returning to Luke's face. "You must be a formidable warrior indeed, Skywalker. Escaping from an Imperial Star Destroyer is no mean trick. Though I imagine a man like yourself is accustomed to giving the Imperials trouble."

"I don't see much front-line action anymore," Luke told him. It was true, and if it lowered the crew's expectations, all the better. "You haven't told me how you came to be out here, Captain. Or how you knew who I was."

Karrde's thin mouth twitched into a half-smile or a smirk. "With a lightsaber attached to your belt?" That wry tone made it a smirk. "Come now. You were either Luke Skywalker, Jedi, or else someone with a taste for antiques and an insufferably high opinion of his swordsmanship." His appraising gaze swept over Luke again. "You're not what I expected, somehow. Though I suppose that's not all that surprising—the vast majority of Jedi lore has been so twisted by myth and ignorance, to get a clear picture is almost impossible."

Now the prickling cascaded up to ring a warning bell in Luke's mind. "You almost sound as if you were expecting to find me here," he said as he shifted into a combat stance and let his senses reach out. All five of the crew he had sensed earlier were still in the forward part of the ship. Only Karrde was close enough to pose any kind of immediate threat.

"As a matter of fact, we were," Karrde agreed. "Though I can't actually take any of the credit for that. It was one of my associates, Mara Jade, who led us here." His head tilted, encouraging a response from Luke. "She's on the bridge at the moment."

Luke felt his stomach bottom out like he had pushed his skyhopper out of a dive a little too hard. It couldn't be the Mara he had known; the galaxy was too kriffing big to ever cross paths with her again. No matter how desperately he wanted to, no matter how deeply he always would. At least his Mara wasn't part of a trap created by Imperials or this Talon Karrde. He had never told Han or Wedge her name, even though both had teased him about his search. There was no way this smuggler or pirate learned about her in Luke's past.

So Karrde's associate, coincidentally named Mara, was potentially Force sensitive enough to sense his presence from light-years away. Luke had to know. Keeping his overall awareness alert, he focused a part of his mind on the _Wild Karrde_ 's bridge. The young woman he had spoken to over the comms sat at the helm. An older man ran a calculation through the nav computer at the station beside the pilot. And sitting behind them was a luminous presence, her Force abilities contained behind rigid mental shields.

A presence he knew, he remembered instinctively, even though they had met before he had training with Yoda to recognize the Force in others. His heart beat harder as he realized that there was a loftier reason he had so imprinted on this woman than the carnality he had assumed. A mix of both, perhaps? Flashes of memory, strengthened by years of reminiscing, joined the turmoil. Burying his nose in red-gold hair as they squeezed together on the narrow cot, her brilliant green eyes cutting through the shadows and through him, his lips on her neck following her directions and brushing against the slave collar around her neck.

"Yes, that's her," Karrde said with a practiced nonchalance. "She hides her talents exceedingly well—though not, I suppose, from a Jedi. It took me several months of careful observation to establish it was more than luck."

Luke pulled away from Mara to focus on the ship's captain before him. "You're very observant about your associate." His tone rose with a slight challenge.

"I have to be in order to take care of my people."

Luke's memory of Mara's slaving collar collided with Karrde's possessive turn of phrase. "Is she your employee or property?"

The older man's mouth flattened. "I don't deal in slaves, Skywalker. I compensate everyone in my organization well for the tasks they accomplish for me." He shrugged. "You grew up on a Hutt-controlled world. I have always found their way of doing business more of a cautionary tale of how not to do it." He got to his feet. "I suppose then, there's nothing more for us to talk about for the moment… and let me say in advance that I'm very sorry it has to be this way."

Luke's hand darted for his lightsaber. He had barely moved when the shock of a stun blast hit him in the back. There were Jedi methods to prevent unconsciousness, but they all took a second of preparation that it was too late for now. He felt himself falling, heard Artoo's frantic trilling moving further away, and wondered how in the galaxy Karrde had done this to him.


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dub/con is in this chapter.

  
  


Metallic hands shoved Luke into a barely illuminated, pourstone constructed room. This wasn't the ship he had just been on. A door mechanism slid shut with a heavy thud. He spun around and faced a cell door.

A muscular humanoid male crossed his red-skinned arms over his bare chest as his pale eyes gleamed from the shadows of the white-hood that covered his head and neck. The Gamemaster's voice came through the bars covering the cell doorway. "{Don't think you can ignore Grakkus' orders, Skywalker. We will test her and punish her if you don't comply.}"

Luke's face heated as he banged his fist against the bars. "{Leave her alone!}" The Gamemaster ignored his outburst and continued down the dark dungeon hall. Luke huffed out his frustration. He didn't need to lose his temper. The poor slave girl behind him will expect him to take his anger out on her. He didn't want her to be afraid of him. He leaned against the bars with a sigh. Just four weeks ago, he had saved nearly the entire Rebellion by blowing up the Death Star, and now a Hutt with a Jedi fetish had trapped him on Nar Shaddaa.

"What's going on? I don't speak Huttese."

He whirled around to face the slave girl imprisoned with him. How could she be living on Nar Shaddaa without knowing Huttese? Everything said in Grakkus' throne room had been in Huttese, except for the one question he had asked her in Basic. His fastened yellow flight jacket swallowed her lithe frame, and it only covered her from shoulders to upper thighs. The slaving collar around her neck was visible through the opening in the jacket's collar. He also saw how bruised her pale legs were. Her knees were almost black.

The corners of her mouth still had angry red marks from the too-tight gag, and her frown accentuated them. What reason did she have to trust him? The only male in the throne room who had put clothing on her seemed inadequate now.

"Please tell me you know more Basic." Worry tightened her wary green eyes.

"Sorry. I know Basic and Huttese. I thought you knew—" His face heated again. "Grakkus agreed you can stay here with me and no one else will touch you if we keep having sex."

She swallowed hard. "And the consequences if we do not?"

"Damn the consequences." His hands curled into fists, but he kept his arms welded to his sides. "If you don't want me touching you again, I won't. And I won't let them hurt you." Her eyebrows raised as she snorted. "I won't," he repeated because he was just that stubborn. Grakkus had no idea how stubborn he could be.

Her eyebrows lowered again as she grew thoughtful. "That seems a poor choice. Wouldn't they lower their guard if we cooperate?"

"Not around me they haven't," Luke muttered.

She sat down on the cot with her legs tight together like she was wearing a skirt. "Do you plan on sharing me with anyone else?"

"No! The whole point is so no one else touches you." He hated this scenario. He had expected a beautiful girl who liked him back, and magic between the two of them for his entire life. Not this mess that he'd rather not remind her of.

She went there with her next question. "Will he, Grakkus, drag us in front of everyone to perform again?"

"I don't think so," Luke answered. He turned away and the throne room surrounded him again. Two MagnaGuards flanked him with a metal hand from each wrapped around his upper arms as they escorted him to Grakkus. The Hutt on six pairs of cybernetic legs loomed over the Nikto, Klatooinians, and the Gamemaster present in this large room that Luke hadn't been in before. "{Good, my little Jedi is here. Bring out my new slave.}" His chuckle reminded Luke of Jabba's recording that was played to the moisture farmers for their tributes.

Two MagnaGuards pulled a human woman through another doorway. She was throwing herself back, trying to break the droids' hold on her wrists and arms. They lifted her bare feet off the floor. Her bare legs dangled in the air under the tunic she was wearing. She kicked, aiming to hit the droid's knee joint, but missed. Luke winced, sympathetic that she hadn't broken her toes. They reached the larger group, and the droids stepped further apart and dangled her above the floor from their hands around her wrists. 

"{I want to inspect the teeny thief. Finish striping her,}" Grakkus ordered. A green-scaled Nikto unsheathed a vibroknife. "{Carefully! No more bleeding.}" The Nikto nodded as he headed to the girl and droids.

No more bleeding? Luke asked himself in dismay. What had they done to this girl?

A savage snarl from her drew his attention back. They had forced a plasticene bit between her jaws, and the loop that went around her head was so tight it gouged into her cheeks. She thrashed in the air, trying to swing her legs at the Nikto.

The Nikto went around the droids to her back while the droids grabbed her thighs with their free metal hands. She snarled again as they forced her still. The Nikto grabbed her tunic and slashed the material. It parted at the shoulders and down the sleeves and fluttered to the floor. Her basics soon followed.

Her pale skin was the same shade, untouched by any suns from head to her toes. Luke's face heated as he realized the curls at the juncture of her legs were darker than her red-gold braid. The slaving collar around her slender neck gleamed in the light. Luke turned his gaze away to spare her some privacy as the crowd began hooting what they wanted to do to her.

Luke's gaze met Grakkus' who was watching him. "{I'm not like Jabba.}" He waved his three-fingered hand toward the slave girl. "{She is human like you. Do you find her attractive?}"

"{Since when does my opinion count?}" Luke asked sarcastically.

"{I want to gift her to you.}" Grakkus sounded serious. "{You have been cooperative, little Jedi. I would reward that. She attempted to steal from me, so I will punish her. If you do not find her attractive, all my employees can have her instead.}" The Hutt's gaze moved to the rowdy males. "{They seem to find her attractive.}"

Luke's stomach clenched and rolled at the same time. Rape by him or rape by all of them; Grakkus was thorough in his punishments. Luke glanced back at her shivering in the MagnaGuards hold. "{She's attractive.}"

"{Release the little Jedi.}" The MagnaGuards beside Luke followed Grakkus' orders and opened the binders on Luke's wrists. "{Go on, enjoy her.}"

The wrongness slowed his steps across the throne room and echoed in his head louder than the jeers from the audience. Her head jerked as she watched him and looked back at Grakkus, the audience, and the battle droids holding her up. As he got closer, he realized her skin had a variation of tone. Circles of dusty rose surrounded the peaked nipples of her pert breasts. Freckles covered her arms and upper body like the stars over the Choatt Salt Flats. Bruises bloomed on her skin too, and livid red marks branded her arms where she had been grabbed and held.

And she was beautiful, far too beautiful to be interested in him. His cock throbbed harder the closer he got. But every lesson Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru had taught him on how to court a woman was shrieking in his mind. This wasn't right, none of this was right, but Grakkus' thugs would hurt her worse than she already was. They were looking forward to it, judging by what they were yelling at him now. He would ask. He would give back as much control over her life as he could.

Her chest heaved as she breathed hard around the plasticene in her mouth. Luke jerked his gaze up, and the green of her eyes caught him. They reminded him of his first glimpse of Yavin 4 as the _Falcon_ had descended to the Rebel base there. They also reminded him of a spooked eopie. She stared at him, not even trying to glance at the others in the throne room.

"{I don't want to hurt you.}" He murmured in Huttese, trying to not attract attention to his rebellious attempt here. "{They do want to hurt you.}"

A sound of bafflement made it past the gag as those vivid green eyes pinched in confusion. She had at least given up on thrashing, but something that had lit her fight was dimming in her eyes.

Luke shifted to block her from view as much as he could and switched to Basic. "Grakkus said it's me kriffing you or all of them. Are you okay with me?"

Understanding filled her face, and she nodded hard once. He swallowed hard but freed his cock from his brown pants. The MagnaGuards held her about even with his height so this should work. This alignment reminded him of a skin holovid they had studied at Tosche Station before Cammie found out about it and incinerated the datacard. He put his hand on her side, feeling her ribs as he slid his hand down to her hip. He had to look down to make sure everything lined up, pushed his cock into her slit, and froze with how different that felt from his hand wrapped around it.

The slave girl grunted with his thrust and he jerked his eyes back up to her face. Her eyebrows had a puzzled tilt to them now. She rolled her hips against his. He lost his wonder at just how she had done that in his need to thrust into her. His left hand seized her other hip before he rocked back and forward again.

She moaned with her inhale but nodded when he looked at her again. He moved again, sliding easier into her wet heat. He wanted to make sure he didn't hurt her, but his body overruled his mental desires to chase the sensation tightening his muscles and balls.

His orgasm shook him completely as it shot into her. He tightened his hold on her as he recovered. Now he heard the yelling again, pointing out she wasn't satisfied at all and it was their turns. He pulled out of her, snatched the remains of her tunic off the floor, and cleaned first her and then himself before fastening his trouser closed again.

Her vivid green eyes blinked down at him, and her puzzled eyebrows were back. He couldn't ask her what was wrong with that gag in her mouth. She glanced behind him and the anger flared again in them. He whirled around.

The Nikto had his vibroknife sheathed as he approached. "{Out of the way, little human,}" he said in Huttese. "{I'll show you how to rut a female.}"

Luke balled up his fists. "{Stay away from her. Grakkus, you said it was me or them!}"

"{Grakkus said that.}" The Hutt stepped forward in a quick staccato of his cybernetic legs. "{Have you tamed the teeny thief? I won't have her hurting you, little Jedi. Release her.}"

The MagnaGuards loosened their hands around the slave girl before Luke could spin around and catch her. She wasn't ready for it and her legs crumpled under her, but she stopped herself from face planting by bracing with her arms.

Luke choked off the insult he wanted into a growl and stripped off his yellow flight jacket. He draped the jacket over her shoulders. She jerked her head around to look at him, her eyes pinching with pain. He nodded at her as she shifted to grab his jacket.

"{Well, little Jedi, you have tamed her.}" There was an unhappy grumble from the other males that stopped immediately with a look from Grakkus. "{What do you want for your gift?}"

He swallowed down the retort over owning beings. He had to work with the slavery system to protect her. "{I want her to stay with me. I don't trust your employees to leave her alone.}" He glared at the closest Nikto. The green-scaled face scowled back at him.

"{If she stays with you, little Jedi, you must kriff her every day. I will not have my gift unused.}" Grakkus wagged a finger at him.

Luke curled his fists again. "{Fine, I will.}"

"{Good, no one else will touch her. This is the will of Grakkus. Gamemaster, escort them both to the little Jedi's cell.}" The MagnaGuards moved. The two closest grabbed the slave girl's arms again and pulled her to her feet. Luke whirled around to see after she gave a startled cry through her gag. 

He was back in the cell, and she was sitting primly on the cot. "I'm sorry," he apologized for the throne room. "I didn't see any other way to stop them from hurting you." He considered the bruise across her right cheekbone, the other bruises down her legs, and the abrasions around her wrists and ankles. "Hurting you more."

"It was the safer choice," she answered softly. "The odds were against us fighting in there. And they're still against us here, so we better comply until we can make better odds."

"We're going to keep having sex?" he asked. "It's your choice."

She nodded jerkily, bouncing her red-gold braid against the jacket's back.

He said the next in a rush before he lost his nerve. "Okay, I don't know what I'm doing, and I know I'm the last man a woman like you would pick." He stared at the stone floor. "I don't know how to make it good for you. I don't want to hurt you. You're hurt enough."

"I've had worse," she said with another scoff. "Wait, that was your first time?" Her horrified tone drew his gaze back up. Sympathy replaced horror in her expression. "We can make it so much better."

She agreed out of pity. He glanced away as his cheeks burned. He was the last man this beautiful woman would choose, someone who had never had sex before. Whatever she told him to do, he would. Anything to give her pleasure.

The food slot cover shoved open with a bang. The tray slid through onto the counter attached to the door wall. He turned to the offering: two bowls of gruel. They weren't planning on starving them on shortened rations. "Are you hungry?" he asked.

"Are they going to drug us?" Her wary worry was back and making him feel like he hadn't been worried enough about his predicament.

"They haven't drugged me yet. Don't give them any ideas." She held out her battered hands, and he passed a bowl and spoon to her. He sat on the floor with his bowl. "It's bland, but they don't have any harissa or tabil here."

She looked up from her bowl. "I don't know either of those things." The bruise had vanished from her face.

"They're seasoning blends my aunt used to cook with." Something was wrong. They hadn't talked about Grakkus' sorry cuisine that first night.

"Kaae jeedai?" The bruise was back on her cheek as she looked at him. "Is that your name?"

"My name is Luke. Kaae Jeedai means little Jedi, Grakkus' joke." He couldn't keep the bitterness out of his voice.

"You're a Jedi?" She hid her fear quickly under polite interest, but he saw it now. Was that why she hadn't fled with him?

But now all his mouth formed were the same words he had said nine years ago. "I'm not a Jedi, but I need to be. Vader killed the man who was going to teach me. I thought I could hire someone here to smuggle me to the old Jedi Temple in Imperial City and look for more information there, but Grakkus caught me instead. He took my father's lightsaber, Ben's journals, has me training for something, and now this." He stopped upon seeing her open mouth. "What?"

"That has to be the most convoluted way of turning yourself in that I've ever heard," she finally said. "The Emperor turned the Jedi Temple into his palace."

"I didn't know." Grakkus' interest in him had probably saved him from certain death. He still didn't like the Hutt any better knowing that. "I thought I could search it before my leave was up, so I didn't clear it with High Command." Leia would have told him how stupid he was if he had. "What's your name? And why did Grakkus call you a thief?"

"My name is Mara." She looked into her bowl of gruel and stirred it. "My master wanted something out of Grakkus' collection, so he sent me here to retrieve it." She glared at the bowl. "I stupidly missed the secondary alarm. And then the guards nabbed me." Her grin was feral under the bruise. "They'll remember how I hit them though."

"But your master will get you out of here."

The bruise had vanished from her bleak face again. "No, he left me here. Said I deserved whatever punishment Grakkus thought of for my failure."

Luke's stomach churned. And what Grakkus had thought up was to have the guards rape her if Luke refused. "My friends are looking for me. We'll get out once they get here."

"I hope you're right about your friends' loyalty." Mara turned her head away, looking at the barred doorway. She always looked that bleak when she thought of her former master's betrayal.

Would sex help? Maybe what she had taught him that wasn't good enough for the medical test. But she enjoyed it. He set aside his bowl and crawled to the cot in front of her legs. He kissed her healed knee before looking up at her.

Her green eyes met his gaze. "What are you up to?"

"Distracting you. Do you want me to stop?" 

"No," she answered. The unfastened jacket revealed a line of pale skin from her navel up to her collarbone.

He gently parted her thighs and kissed the inside of her left knee then her right.

"It takes more than that to distract me."

"It's a process." His next kiss moved up her inner left thigh.

"I don't think you thought this through."

He left his mouth on her right thigh while he put his hands around her hips. He pulled her forward to the edge of the cot and his tongue licked the rest of her thigh. He leaned back to look at her.

She pushed the unfastened jacket off her shoulders. "I like it when you prove me wrong," she panted.

He grinned at her before giving his retort, which was to run his tongue over the juncture of her thighs. Her fingers combed into his hair and rested on the back of his head as he continued to lick her folds. But there was a metallic aftertaste he hadn't tasted before, and he felt dizzy with stunner lag and something else. Had Grakkus drugged him? Why? He was doing everything the Hutt wanted.

Mara's face swam in and out of focus above him. He reached for it. He would kiss her this time, making up for all the times he talked himself out of kissing her before. "How much did you give him?" She snapped at someone outside his focus.

Something was wrong. Someone had drugged him. He knew how to deal with being drugged now, but the technique he had learned from the _Chu'unthor_ records wasn't working. He struggled to sit up.

Mara turned back to him and pressed him back down on a bunk. "It's all right, Luke. I'm here. Just sleep it off."

His hand found her arm and wrapped around it. She was here. He didn't squeeze; he didn't want to hurt her.

She smoothed his hair back, like Aunt Beru did when he was sick. "Sleep, Luke. I'm here."

That sounded like a good idea. His eyes closed, and he drifted down into darkness beyond his memories.


	3. Chapter Three

  
  


Luke blinked at a ceiling he didn't recognize. Sunlight streamed over his face, and the breeze was balmy, damp, and filled with unfamiliar odors. His back was flat on a bed rather than a ship bunk, and his mouth was parched. He remembered being stunned and, judging by how badly he wanted a shower, someone had kept him under with sedatives. His head was clear now, so he lifted it.

He was lying on a bed in a small but furnished room. Directly across the room from the foot of the bed was an open window, and beyond the transparent material was a forest edge fifty meters away from this building and a yellowish-orange sun hovered over the green trees. The furniture didn't look like those used in prison cells.

"Finally awake, are you?" A familiar woman's voice said from the side.

Luke jerked his head toward the voice. His first startled thought was that he had missed sensing her; and his second told him he was ridiculous, and the voice must have come from an intercom or comlink.

Mara sat in a high-backed chair, her arms draped over the arms. A compact but deadly looking blaster lay in her lap. The nine years had changed her, but not much. She was still slender, but her breasts and hips had grown curvier in a way Luke found very appealing. Her red-gold hair gleamed as it curled around her shoulders, and her brilliant green eyes still bore straight through him and took his breath away.

But he couldn't sense her in the Force at all.

"Karrde thought you'd appreciate a friendly face," she continued.

"A friendly armed face." He swallowed and wished for some water.

She only looked amused at his sarcasm. "Work with me, Skywalker. You are a prisoner."

"That much is obvious." He reached out further. His adrenaline surged as he realized he couldn't sense people, droids, or even the forest outside. "How did you do this?" It was like going blind.

"That's not my secret to tell. If Karrde doesn't…." She shrugged. "Let's see how his debrief goes. I can't jeopardize my job with the appearance of divided loyalty."

Luke swung his legs over the side of the bed. He still wore his flight suit, minus the flak vest and the suit system controls. The protests from his muscles from having lay still for so long were not as bad as they could have been, and he didn't appear to have any cramps. The effort still made him breathe harder. "Thank you for finding me, but you could have left me there," he said while trying not to wheeze. "That would have avoided questions of compromises."

Her green eyes hardened. "Do you believe that I would leave you to certain death? Do you think so little of me?"

Luke grimaced as he leaned his forearms on his thighs and curled his back. What he had said reeked with ingratitude. "I'm sorry. I'm just so very finished with being imprisoned, being chased for capture, and having my loved ones threatened to get to me. These last few months…." His voice trailed away as he shook his head. He looked at her, memorizing her features to last for another nine years if need be. "This is worth seeing you again," he said with a smile.

She blinked as her head drew back. "You—" She cut herself off with a headshake. "That's not the drawback I would have assumed you'd have for becoming an all-important Jedi Knight. Other than that, is it everything you had thought it would be?"

"It's nothing like I thought it'd be." He chuckled. "But that's true about everyone's life. I don't regret becoming a Jedi, though."

"I'm glad you got what you wanted. If you're up for it, Karrde wants to see you."

He remembered the previous conversation with Karrde and straightened his back. "Blast it. I told Karrde about your enslavement. I didn't name Grakkus, but I asked if Karrde considered you his property."

"How did Karrde even have time to push that button?"

His face heated. "Sorry if you were hiding how you took back your freedom."

She shrugged. "I hadn't told him, no. But there are plenty of people working for him who ran into trouble with the Hutts. He probably won't care about that, not when you're offering a much more tantalizing mystery."

"Is that a hint on how to play this?"

"Just be yourself." Mara chuckled as she stood, moving her blaster to her hand. His lightsaber was clipped to her belt. She glanced down at it when she caught his expression. "I was not letting anyone else on board the _Wild Karrde_ hold on to it. They'd cut off their own heads or breach the hull. Besides, it's yours, isn't it? Not your father's." Luke nodded, and her expression softened as she glanced away. "I thought so. It felt like you."

He patted down his pockets as he headed for the room's door. They had removed all the equipment he had stashed, including his comlink. He hadn't expected to find it. "Do you have my comlink?"

"Not on me, Farmboy. How does the New Republic train guards?"

He shrugged because that wasn't why he brought it up. "Copy down my comcode. You can comm me instead of bumping into each other in deep space."

"I'll keep that in mind." She fell in behind him in the long hallway with identical doors spaced at regular intervals along its length, looking like she was marching him at blaster point. It reminded him of barracks. They exited that building into a large grassy clearing surrounded by forest. The gentle breeze rustled the grass and the leaves, and he didn't find it humid after stopping on Dagobah again.

Mara directed him onto a path worn through the short grass that wound its way between all the buildings in the clearing. They headed toward a large, high-roofed building closest to the pair of barracks they were leaving. Four small buildings were grouped together across the clearing from the largest building. They looked like storehouses.

A servicing hangar and over a dozen starships clustered around it filled the other end of the clearing. Two bulk cruisers like the _Wild Karrde_ and several smaller craft; whatever Karrde's business was, it was profitable. Luke saw the nose of his X-Wing tucked away behind one of the bulk cruisers and under the tree canopy and hidden from the clear sky. Should he ask Mara what had happened to Artoo? No, it was better to ask Karrde and hear what answer Karrde would give him.

They reached the large central building and Mara brushed against him to slap the door annunciator. "He's in the great room. Straight ahead." Luke continued down the hallway, gratified that its length gave him time to compose himself again. He wasn't a raw adolescent grateful for any attention from a woman. They passed a pair of medium-sized dining and recreation rooms to reach a large door at the end of the hallway that slid open as they reached it.

Luke stopped in the doorway and stared. The spacious room ahead of him was larger than Han and Leia's quarters back at the Imperial Palace. A web of carved rafters held up a translucent ceiling that filtered in dappled sunlight. Dark brown wood that composed the walls had been whittled down to hand-wide strands that covered light sources as a rigid mesh holding a deep blue glow. Chairs, couches, and large cushions were arranged in well-separated conversation circles with other luxuries scattered about: a small sculpture here and an unrecognizable alien artifact there.

But Luke missed the relaxed, almost informal attitude of the space by focusing his full attention on the tree growing through the center of the room. Ch'hala trees lined the Grand Corridor of the Imperial Palace, but this one was a meter in diameter at the base and grew from a section of plain dirt floor through the translucent ceiling and beyond. Sunlight penetrated the leaves dancing in the breeze to reach the room below. Thick limbs started about two meters from the ground and stretched their way across the room, some of them nearly brushing against the walls. The saplings grown indoors didn't compare.

"Ah, Skywalker," a voice called from in front of him. It took effort, but Luke shifted his gaze downward to find Karrde sitting in a chair at the base of the tree. Two long-legged quadrupeds crouched flanking the chair, and their muzzles pointed in Luke's direction. "Come and join me."

Luke started toward him. The animals continued staring at him as he got closer.

Karrde didn't pay them much attention. "Welcome back to the land of the living," he said as Luke closed in. He picked up a metal pitcher from the low table next to the chair and poured a red liquid into a pair of cups. "I must apologize for having kept you asleep all this time. But I'm sure you appreciate the special problems involved in making sure a Jedi stays where you've put him."

"Of course," Luke said. The animals hadn't blinked yet and continued staring with predatory intensity. "Though if you'd just asked nicely," he added, "you might have found me willing to cooperate."

Karrde's smile flickered on his lips. "Perhaps. Perhaps not." He gestured to the chair across from him. "Please sit down."

Luke moved to circle around the chair. The animal in front of the table rose on its brown haunches, making a strange choked purr. Luke froze. He wasn't familiar with these predators, but recognized carnivorous teeth in their snouts and claws on their feet.

"Easy, Sturm," Karrde admonished, looking down at the animal. "This man is our guest."

Lots of beings kept carnivores as pets, Luke reminded himself. The quadrupeds would remember their symbiotic relationship with Karrde and back down.

Sturm's pointed ears flattened against his skull and he bared more of its teeth.

"I don't think it believes you." Luke remained still to not trigger any attacks. Without the Force, he couldn't calm the animals or make them ignore him.

The second animal made the same sound as the first had.

"Perhaps not." Karrde wrapped a hand on each of the animal's collars that were obscured by the darker brown mane of fur covering their necks and shoulders. He glanced around the room. "Chin!" he called. "Come and take them out, will you?"

"Sure." A middle-aged man with a Froffli-style haircut hurried over from the other two men in one of the conversation circles. "Come on, fellows." He grunted as he gripped the collars and led the animals away. "What hai we go for a walk, hee?"

"My apologies, Skywalker," Karrde said with a frown as he watched his pets leave. Mara stepped past Luke and took up a position next to her employer. Karrde frowned at her with thoughtful eyes. "They're usually better behaved than that with guests. Now, please sit down."

Luke sat and accepted the cup Karrde offered him. Mara had holstered her blaster on her left forearm, as accessible as it would have been in her hand.

"It's just a mild stimulant." Karrde nodded to the cup in Luke's hand. "Something to help you wake up." He took a drink from his own cup and returned it to the low table.

Luke sipped, and it tasted all right, a chilled herbal tea not as strong as caf. Besides, if Karrde wanted to drug him, he wouldn't have to use such subterfuge. And it was refreshing down his throat. "Would you mind telling me where my droid is?"

"Oh, he's perfectly all right," Karrde answered. "I have him in one of my equipment sheds for safekeeping."

"I'd like to see him, if I may."

"That can be arranged. But later." Karrde leaned back in his seat. "Perhaps after we've figured out just what we're going to do with you."

"What are the options?" Luke glanced up at Mara, but her face was sabacc-blank. "Maybe I can add another to the list."

"The Imperials want you or we can remove you from galactic equations." Karrde picked up his cup for another sip. "And you're presumably more enthusiastic about the third option that we send you back home."

"With due compensation," Luke said. "Say double whatever the Empire would offer?"

"You're very generous with other people's money," Karrde said in a tone that could match Leia's driest delivery. "The problem, unfortunately, doesn't arise from money, but from politics. Our operations extend rather deeply into both Imperial and Republic space. If the Empire discovered we'd released you back to the Republic, they would be immensely displeased with us."

"And vice versa, if you turned me over to the Empire," Luke pointed out.

"True," Karrde said. "Except that given the damage to your X-wing's subspace radio, the Republic plausibly has no idea what happened to you. The Empire, regrettably, does."

"And it's not what they _would_ offer," Mara interjected. "It's what they _have_ offered. Thirty thousand."

Luke pursed his lips. "They put out a bounty that large that quickly."

"You could be the difference between solvency and failure for numerous marginal operators," Karrde said. "There are feasibly dozens of ships out there, ignoring schedules and prior commitments to hunt for you." His smile was predatory, considering them. "Operators who haven't given even a moment of consideration to how they would hold on to a Jedi even if they caught one."

"Your method seems to work pretty well." Luke swallowed more of his drink. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to tell me how you've managed it."

Karrde smirked. "Secrets of that magnitude are worth a great deal of money. Have you any secrets of equal value to trade?"

"Probably not. But, again, I'm sure the New Republic would pay market value."

Karrde sipped from his drink again, watching Luke over the rim of his cup. "I'll make you a deal." He put the cup back on the table beside him. "You tell me why the Empire is suddenly so interested in you, and I'll tell you why your Jedi powers aren't working."

"Why don't you ask the Imperials?"

Karrde smiled. "Thank you, but no. I'd just as soon not have them wonder at my sudden interest. Particularly after we pleaded prior commitments when the request came in for us to help hunt you down."

Luke frowned at him. "You weren't hunting for me?"

"No, we weren't." Karrde's smile slipped into a smirk again. "One of those little ironies that make life so interesting. We were returning from a cargo pickup when Mara dropped us out of hyperspace on the spur of the moment to do a nav reading. And after she had reminded me of all our good reasons to remain neutral too."

Luke kept his face as stoic as possible, ignoring how his heart sank. He never enjoyed thinking of how he was a public figure now, but he couldn't deny he had been findable for years. She hadn't wanted to find him. They were allies of the circumstances while both prisoners of Grakkus; and she might not wish him death or ill, but she hadn't wanted to see him again. He couldn't blame her for that, considering everything. She took her freedom, and he was not hypocritical enough to deny her free choices. Just a heart-rending wish that they had been different choices. Her expression was just as stoic. "How fortunate for you," Luke said to Karrde.

"Perhaps," Karrde said. "The net result, though, was to put us in the middle of the exact situation I'd hoped to avoid."

Luke held out his hands with the palms up. "Then let me go and pretend none of this happened. I give you my word I'll keep your part in it quiet."

"The Empire would find out." Karrde shook his head. "Their new commander is extremely good at piecing bits of information together. No, I think your best hope right now is for us to find a compromise. Some way we can let you go while still giving the Imperials what they want." He cocked his head. "Which leads us back to my original question."

"And from there, back to my original answer," Luke said. "I don't know what the Empire wants with me." He hesitated, but Leia should be out of Imperial reach with the Wookiees on Kashyyyk. Maybe Karrde's operations had a detail of the why they hadn't been able to guess. "I can tell you, though, that it's not just me. There have been two attempts on my sister Leia, too."

"Killing attempts?"

Luke cast his mind back for the details. "I don't think so. The one I was present for felt more like a kidnapping."

Mara's stoic expression cracked as she bit on her lower lip before asking. "And she is pregnant, or is that something the HoloNet made up to talk about?"

He wasn't sure why that was important, but he answered truthfully. "She is expecting twins."

Mara didn't comment on his answer but looked at Karrde. His eyes unfocused as he thought, and his voice dropped to a murmur. "Interesting. Leia Organa Solo, who is in training to be a Jedi like her brother and is expecting the next generation of Jedi. That could explain… certain recent Imperial actions."

After a few moments, it was obvious that Karrde wasn't offering that explanation. "You spoke of a compromise," Luke reminded him.

Karrde brought his thoughts back to the room. "Yes, I did. It has occurred to me that your privileged position in the New Republic might be what the Empire was interested in—that they wanted information on the inner workings of the Provisional Council. In such a case, we might have been able to work out a deal whereby you went free while your R2 droid went to the Imperials for debriefing."

Luke's stomach tightened. "It wouldn't do them any good," he said as calmly as he could manage. The idea of Artoo being sold into Imperial slavery made him sick and angry. "Artoo has never been to any of the Council meetings."

"But he has a great deal of knowledge of you personally," Karrde said. "And of your sister, her husband, and various other highly placed members of the New Republic." He shrugged. "It's a moot question now. That the focus is exclusively on the New Republic's Jedi and potential Jedi means they're not after information. Where did these two attacks take place?"

"The first was on Bimmisaari, the second on Bpfassh."

Karrde nodded. "We've got a contact on Bpfassh; perhaps we can get him to do some backtracking on the Imperials. Until then, I'm afraid you must remain here as our guest."

That sounded like a dismissal. "Let me just point out one other thing before I go," Luke said. "No matter what happens to me or Leia, the Empire is still doomed. There are more planets in the New Republic now than there are under Imperial rule, and that number increases daily. We'll win eventually, if only by sheer weight of numbers."

"I understand that was the Emperor's own argument when discussing your Rebellion," Karrde countered. "Still, that is the crux of the dilemma, isn't it? While the Empire will wreak swift retribution on me if I don't give you over to them, the New Republic looks more likely to win out in the long run. At any rate, I thank you for your time, Skywalker. I hope we can decide without too much of a delay."

"Don't hurry on my account," Luke said. "This seems a pleasant enough world to spend a few days on."

"Don't believe it for a moment." Karrde's brown eyes grew sharp as he gave his warning. "My two pet vornskrs have an abundance of relatives out in the forest. Relatives who haven't had the benefits of modern domestication."

"I understand." Luke considered the odds. They were about a meter smaller than womp rats, and if he could leave Karrde's base and get clear of the strange interference blocking his access to the Force, there had to be other settlements.

"And don't count on your Jedi skills to protect you, either," Karrde added in a bored tone. "You'll be just as helpless in the forest. Assumably more so." He looked up at the tree towering above him. "There are considerably more ysalamiri out there than there are here."

"Ysalamiri?" Luke looked past the leaves as well and noticed the slender, gray-brown creature hanging onto the tree limb over Karrde's head. "What is it?"

"The reason you're staying where we put you," Karrde said. "They seem to have the unusual ability to push back the Force—to create bubbles, so to speak, where the Force doesn't exist."

"I've never heard of them," Luke said. Was it true at all? Neither Yoda nor Ben had ever mentioned the possibility of such a thing. He grimaced inwardly, thinking of everything else they didn't mention to him.

"Not very many have. And in the past, most of those who did had a vested interest in keeping it that way. The Jedi of the Old Republic avoided the planet, for obvious reasons, which was why a fair number of smuggling groups back then had their bases here. After the Emperor destroyed the Jedi, most of the groups pulled up and left, preferring to be closer to their potential markets. Now that the Jedi are rising again—" he nodded at Luke "—perhaps some of them will return. Though I dare say the general populace would doubtless not appreciate that."

Luke gazed around the tree. Several other ysalamiri wrapped around and across various limbs and branches. "What makes you think it's the ysalamiri and not something else that's responsible for this blocking in the Force?"

"Partly local legend," Karrde said. "Mainly, how you're standing here talking with me now. How else could a man with a stun weapon and a nervous mind have walked right up behind a Jedi without being noticed?"

Luke's gaze returned to Karrde. "You had ysalamiri about the _Wild Karrde_."

"Correct. Purely by chance. Well—" Karrde looked up at Mara. "Perhaps not entirely by chance."

Luke glanced at the animal above Karrde's head again. "How far does this bubbling extend?"

"I'm not sure anyone knows." Karrde poured more of the red drink into his cup. "Legend says that individual ysalamiri have bubbles from one to ten meters in radius, but that groups of them have larger ones. Reinforcement, I gather. Perhaps you'll do us the courtesy of participating in a few experiments regarding them before you leave."

"Perhaps," Luke said. "Though that probably depends on which direction I'm heading."

"It probably will," Karrde agreed. "I imagine you'd like to get cleaned up—you've been living in that flight suit for several days now. Did you bring any changes of clothing with you?"

"There's a case in the cargo compartment of my X-wing," Luke said. "Thank you for bringing it along."

"I try never to waste anything that may someday prove useful," Karrde said. "I'll have your things sent over as soon as my associates have determined that there are no hidden weapons or other equipment among them." He smiled slightly. "I doubt that a Jedi would bother with such things, but I believe in being thorough. Good evening, Skywalker."

Mara pulled her tiny blaster out again. "Let's go." She gestured with it.

Luke stood. "Let me offer you one other option. If you decide you'd rather pretend none of this ever happened, you could just return Artoo and me to where you found us. I'd be willing to take my chances with the other searchers."

"Including the Imperials?" Karrde asked.

"Including the Imperials." Luke nodded.

Karrde continued to smile. "You might be surprised. But I'll keep the option in mind."

The sun had dropped behind the trees and the sky was almost purple above as Mara escorted him back to the second barrack building. "Did I miss dinner?" He asked as they walked down the corridor toward his room.

"I'll bring you something." Mara's voice sounded like she was thinking of something else.

"Thank you." Luke took a deep breath. Maybe mercenary concerns would work if nothing else would. "Whoever is running the Imperial Remnant now is a sand churl."

"A what?" They entered his room, and he turned around. She slid her blaster into the forearm holster again.

"My price has gone down. The Imperials offered 60,000 for me right after the Battle of Yavin."

She looked confused. "Is this a Rebel—sorry New Republic bragging competition?"

"No." Han had won that years ago with the price Jabba had put on his head. "I'm telling you, that's a sure amount. **I'm** good for it, if you don't believe the New Republic is. It's classified how I am good for it, but I am." Davik Oligard would lecture him on how paying his own ransom was not sound fiscal policy with the Vader estate, but he couldn't do that if Luke didn't get out of this mess. "If you have any sway left with your boss, I'm good for it."

"I honestly don't know what Karrde's answer will be." Her green eyes flashed with exasperation as they shifted away from him. "You better get comfortable because more likely than not, he'll keep you until he learns why the Imperials have a sudden interest in Force users." She looked at him before her gaze skited away again. "Frankly, I've got a vested interest in that answer myself. If they just want to wipe out the Jedi again, why bother with kidnapping?"

"It suggests something to you," he said softly.

Her mouth twisted. "They have a way to exploit them, a way they are so damned confident of they'll risk going after the most famous potential Force users in the galaxy before they're even born."

Luke wasn't sure what made him shiver: her matter-of-fact assessment of the situation, the night breeze from the still open window, or her haunted, bleak expression that reminded him of times they had spoken of betrayal before. "I told no one about you," he said.

"I'm sure they have other sources of information besides who you know, Luke." She brusquely crossed the room, closed the window, and activated a sensor on the sill. "Didn't the Old Republic have a blood test?"

"They did, but I'm having a hard time finding information on the details. What it tested for to measure Force potential, how they administered it." He shrugged, not that she turned to see it. "Whatever Palpatine had done to the Jedi records makes the archivists cry over data loss."

Her fingers pressed down hard on the windowsill before she jerked her hands back. "Occasionally, I don't think you killed him hard enough." She turned to face him and continued speaking before Luke could explain—yet again—he had killed no one in the second Death Star's throne room. "The window doesn't lock, but it has an alarm. The wild vornskrs come close to the base. I don't recommend taking a chance with them. It took two solid months of daily work with Karrde's tame pair before they stopped stalking me, and I still don't trust them."

"I'll pass on meeting more of the local wildlife. Thanks for the warning."

She waved at a door in the wall behind her seat. "There are toiletries in the 'fresher if you need them. I'll go see about a meal tray and your things." She didn't wait for his response, and the lock on the main door engaged after it slid shut behind her.

The silence of the building was deafening.

He peered out the window. Lights were on in some windows of the neighboring barracks building. He couldn't see any more lights from the building he was in. He supposed that made sense; Karrde didn't want most of his associates knowing about this than necessary, no matter what he decided to do.

He sat down on the bed, acknowledging the fear clambering inside him. _There is no emotion, there is peace._ He released the fear into the Force. He'd find a way out of this predicament and give Mara the distance she wanted from him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Davik Oligard is a character borrowed from [The Old Man's Gift or; How Luke Got Stinking Rich](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4030222) by Aviatorman (mooseman13579), mooseman13579, along with the idea that Vader made a will and left all his property to Luke Skywalker. I love the idea; it is awesome. It has lodged into my brain as permanent canon now.


	4. Chapter Four

  
  


Lucinda recounted all the datacards on her desk. It was the same as the last three times she counted; one was missing. And it was the lessons on the Clone Wars history of Naboo that she had ignored doing while Mommy was working off planet. But she was back now. And Mommy was going to do a progress check on Luci's lessons as soon as she finished with the fancy dinner Captain Karrde was holding for base guests. 

Luci glanced at her still covered meal tray. The missing datacard churned her stomach and made her not hungry at all. Luci had opened the datacard. She remembered how it started with the battle between the Trade Federation and Naboo to explain something that happened when the Clone Wars started ten years later. She would know what that was if she had done the lessons. When was the last time she had opened it?

She flopped into her desk chair and thought hard. Mommy had been gone for two months, so it had been a while. The last time she had worked on it was before the Star Destroyer had shown up to collect ysalamiri, when she had panicked and packed up her things to run. She jerked up and grabbed her datapad. It had fallen out of her bag in the Skipray. The datacard must have fallen out too. And she missed picking it up while Chin hauled her out of the ship.

Mommy had told her to stay out of the Skiprays and she had. But Mommy would be madder that Lucinda hadn't finished her lessons. Luci doing them on her own was proof that she was a big girl who could take care of her responsibilities. 

But now, Mommy was busy with the fancy dinner. Luci could get the datacard out of the Skipray and be back in her room working on her lessons before that ended. Then Mommy would only have questions of why Luci was behind, and because she hadn't done them was the honest answer.

And Mommy would ground Luci until Luci was back on schedule, which wouldn't be fun but was less awful than the alternative.

She left the datapad on her desk as she left the room. Nobody was outside as she dashed across the clearing, and the Skipray she wanted was docked on Landing Pad 1 again. The main hatch was down, so she scrambled over the main wings on the body of the ship. It was a lot easier to do without the bags this time. No datacard in the tiny passageway between the cockpit, so she went into the main cabin and scowled.

Someone had magnetically clamped the crates to new positions in the cabin. If they had put one of them on her datacard, damage or data corruption would make it useless. Mommy would have to waste credits on a replacement.

She didn't see a datacard on the cleared deck plate in this cabin. Maybe it had ended up where the datapad had: under the fold-able bench. They had stacked four boxes in front of those benches, but not flush against the hull. She peered behind the boxes.

The seats were lifted against the hull. A datacard was on the floor up against the wall. Lucinda dropped to her hands and knees and crawled to it. She wrapped her hand around it, wanting to cheer out loud, but didn't. Somebody might hear her and tell Mommy.

Boots stepped onto the entry ramp.

Lucinda jerked her head to check, but the crates hid her. She didn't dare come out now. Everybody who worked for Captain Karrde would tell on her to save themselves from Mommy.

She heard his low grunting, like he was straining to do something but trying not to make a lot of noise. She stayed frozen but mentally screamed, _Get your check done and go!_ at him. But he didn't leave as something heavy and metallic landed on the deck plate.

An electronic twitter sounded in the passageway. "So how about no more complaints when I grab you with the Force?" The male voice was low. The hinged hatchway hissed as it closed. "Cockpit is this way." The boot steps headed forward, followed by a much quieter whir.

Luci crawled to the edge of the crates hiding her and craned her neck until she saw the closed hatchway. He was taking off?! 

Mommy was going to KILL her. 

No, that would be over too quick. Mommy was going to do something worse. Luci's imagination failed with coming up with a suitable something. She had to get out of here before takeoff because Mommy's anger might be less if Luci didn't actually leave planet.

She crept onto her feet, grateful for her soft-soled boots that made her feet quieter than the male's boots. Then she moved sideways in the main cabin until she pressed against the opposite hull with a view into the cockpit. A blond human male dressed in black was wrapping the seat restraints around a barrel-shaped astromech droid wedged between two of the three seats at the Skipray's tech/weapons station.

Her heart pounded. She didn't recognize the man. Mommy always introduced her to Captain Karrde's new hires. She dashed to the wall between the main cabin's door and the autochef unit, out of sight of the cockpit pressed up against it. 

Mommy had been super busy since _Wild Karrde_ docked a few days ago, so it's possible she forgot to introduce a new crew member. But Captain Karrde didn't need any astromech droids for any of his ships. The maintenance tech had told her all about that. 

So where did they come from, Hyllyard City? And what were they doing, stealing the Skipray? She slid the datacard into a thigh pocket on her trousers.

"Looks like everything's already on standby." The man said, not so worried about his volume now after he shut the hatch. "There's an outlet right there—give everything a quick check while I strap in. With a little luck, maybe we can be out of here before anyone even knows we're gone." The droid beeped in response.

He was stealing the Skipray! Lucinda's mouth dropped open. The engines were already rumbling, triggering Mommy's rule about always being strapped in when the ship's sublights were running. But he was stealing the Skipray! And he didn't know she was here. She closed her mouth as she thought. If she was sneaky and made sure the thief didn't know she was here, she could sneak to the comm and tell the base where it was after they landed. But where to hide?

She dashed to the folded bench behind the magnetic crates. There was just enough room to lower the seat between the hull and the crates, keeping her hidden, and she could strap in, even though she had to sit cross-legged to squeeze her legs behind the crate. She pulled the restraints around her body.

She finished tightening the straps just in time to feel the Skipray shift forward and her body slid a little to the left. The thief wasn't wasting any time.

"I think we're in trouble." The man called back to his droid.

Was it normal to talk to a droid so much when the droid doesn't speak Basic? Mommy couldn't ever afford a droid until this job, but they didn't need one. Lucinda gripped the restraints tighter as the sublight drive roared. The thief-pilot was going fast, but it didn't feel like the Skipray was going higher. Something scraped against the bottom and the droid squealed so loud she heard it.

"Sorry!"

Maybe the droid was the brain of this stealing the Skipray operation, and that's why the man kept talking to it.

The droid trilled.

"Hang on!"

Oh, Lucinda did not like the sound of that shout. The Skipray rolled hard and her stomach flipped as the roll became a spin that didn't stop. She heard the cockpit canopy shatter and felt the Skipray slam into trees. She shrieked as she covered her head with her arms. The crash balloons popped out of the restraints and covered more of her. The droid answered her scream with an electronic scream of its own.

* * *

Luke didn't hurt as he staggered back to consciousness. This was one of his better crashes, considering the splintered trees outside the fighter's twisted canopy. The fighter must be equipped with an emergency acceleration compensator along with the restraints and crash balloons. Its nose had plowed into the ground and now the aft section was higher.

He and Artoo couldn't linger here. The fighter chasing him probably had reinforcements coming from Karrde's base or worse, the Star Destroyer in orbit above the planet. Leaving had been the best option; company for dinner, yeah right. He brushed the leaves and twigs away from himself and the instrument panels in front of him. The scopes were dead.

Artoo moaned behind him.

"You okay, Artoo?" He unlatched his restraints and leveraged himself out of the seat.

Artoo warbled at him. {Passenger. Can't scan status.}

"Hang on, I'm coming." Luke climbed up the slanted floor. It could have been a worse incline if they had come straight down to the ground on the ship's nose. 

The droid's scomp link had broken off cleanly, and Luke made sure the remains retracted properly. And a few dents; but Artoo wasn't fussing about them. {Passenger. Can't scan status. Check on passenger.}

"What are you talking about?" Luke untangled the seat restraints from around the droid. Then he heard it, a choked off sob that could never be mistaken for metal giving way from stress.

Artoo magnetically latched onto the deck plate and swiveled his dome to aim the photoreceptor at the cockpit door.

Luke climbed into the passageway and into the main cabin of the small ship. The sob choked off again, but this time it sounded like a hand slapped over a mouth. But he didn't see anybody, just magnetic crates still stacked together next to the hull. A hull wall that undoubtedly had benches that folded up out of the way like the other side.

He crossed the cabin to look between the crates and the hull. The seat was down, and a little girl about seven or eight was curled on it, hiding her face against her knees. Her shimmering red-gold hair was plaited in two braids curving above her ears with the braids falling onto her shoulders. And he only knew one woman with that shade of red; he had run after enough of the wrong ones to know the difference now. His aching heart thudded. He hadn't sensed this child at all, couldn't sense her now. Was she hurt? He knelt next to the bench. "Are you hurt?"

Her head snapped back, and blue eyes reddened from crying glared at him. "Why should I tell you anything?! You stole from Captain Karrde. This was his Skipray, and you wrecked it 'cause you're a terrible pilot!"

"That move works better in an X-wing," he conceded. Her tear-soaked face was red from the yelling, and her neck and arms moved effortlessly. "But if you're hurt, you need to tell me so we can use the medpac before you move a lot and make it worse."

Artoo twittered. {Torso contusions. No internal structures or systems damage.} The scan done, the droid turned and rolled into the passageway with the main hatch.

The little girl blinked at him. "It hurts where the restraints caught me like I hit it real hard, but I can walk."

"Can you undo the restraints?"

She scowled. "I shouldn't listen to you. If you're willing to steal, you'll do worse things to me."

Artoo whistled in squeamish-sounding awe before elaborating. {Other ship crashed worse than we did. Slipstream pull down, in all probability.}

"One problem at a time, Artoo." He called over his shoulder.

Curiosity crept across her suspicious face. "How do you know what the droid is saying?"

"I know Binary. I can't speak it; human throats can't make all the same sounds."

"Nobody told me I could learn it."

"Artoo taught me. Let's all find somewhere safe to go and I'll help you learn some. My name is Luke."

"It's safer to stay with the Skipray. Everybody on base said that."

"That's true if the Imperial Star Destroyer in orbit didn't see us go down." He hoped these smugglers were raising her with a healthy sense of fear of them, along with a suspicion of strangers.

Her blue eyes widened as she struggled to breathe. "They came back?"

"I'd show you the scopes, but the crash took them out."

She stared at him, and Luke wished he could soothe her fears of him through the Force. Her hands shook as she unlatched the restraints and swung her legs out to the side of the seat. Luke stood and stepped back to give her room. She skidded a little and then scowled up at him like he had caused it on purpose. "Just because I don't like stormtroopers doesn't mean I like you."

"Fair enough. Do you know where the safety supplies are stored?"

"In a compartment above the main hatch." She went through the doorway first and stared at Artoo. "You look familiar."

Before droid or man could respond, a female yelled from outside. "Sithspit, Skywalker, if that stunt didn't kill you, I might finish the job!"

If Luke had any doubts over her lineage, the child's reaction confirmed it. She shrank back from the hatch with a muttered "Blast it."

He smoothed out his twitching lips that wanted to smile before scooping her up in his right arm. She squeaked and grabbed his shoulder. "We both have to face this music, kid." The crash had sheered away the wing he had pushed Artoo over to get the droid to the hatch, leaving a clear path to the ground not too far below.

Luke swung out of the hatch and dropped to the ground. The little girl squeaked again as she fisted his tabard for support. He straightened his knees and looked directly into the holdout blaster's barrel. He shifted his focus to the icy face behind it.

The little girl perched on his arm trembled. "Mommy?"

Mara's glittering green eyes focused on Luke. "Aren't you the perfect Jedi Knight now?" Cold venom laced her words. "Already stealing children. Put her down."

That old Imperial lie kindled his anger, but he kept it contained for the child's sake. "I didn't steal her; she stowed away!" He wasn't sure how successful he was at containing it. He set her on her feet before turning back to the fighter. 

Artoo beeped worriedly and had latched onto the outer hull of the ship, but now couldn't detach without falling flat on the ground. 

Mara didn't shoot him in the back as he helped Artoo get his treads on the ground. "Lucinda Padmé Jade, why aren't you in your room working on your lessons?"

With Artoo stabilized on the forest floor, Luke turned around to watch the family dynamic. Mara had tucked her blaster in its forearm holster and planted her hands on her hips. His lightsaber was hanging from her belt again. She hadn't worn it when she had moved him from the barracks to the shed.

Lucinda fidgeted, much like Luke remembered doing when Uncle Owen or Aunt Beru had that tone. She drew a datacard out of her trouser pocket. "It got left on the Skipray last time and I thought I could get it without interrupting the special supper and then he stole the Skipray!" She pointed to Luke. "Why aren't you yelling at him?"

"His turn is next. Now is about you and how you were supposed to stay out of the ships and do your lessons while I was off planet. How many did you finish if you just now missed this datacard?"

Luke turned back to the Skipray and climbed inside. Mara had a child, a family, and that knowledge was eating his insides like acid. It shouldn't. Hadn't one of the first things he had said to her in Grakkus' cell been that he knew a luminous woman like her would never pick a man like him? And she hadn't. She hadn't escaped with him, and she had found someone else who she loved and trusted enough to have a child with. Hopefully, the Jade fellow who managed that knew how lucky he was.

He found the release for the compartment and pulled out a metal case. He didn't recognize the company logo, but the equipment inside was a standard survival kit. No blaster. The conversation outside moved off lessons and punishments to injuries and a mediscan. Mara had finished running the medisensor over Lucinda by the time he jumped down with the survival kit.

"You must wait until we're back at the base for any bacta salve," Mara said as she closed a matching survival kit.

"I hope we're not walking the entire way back," Luke said to goad a reaction out of her.

She stood, and her hands went to her hips again. "I should make you walk back just for this." She waved her hand to take in the clearing created by the two crashed fighters.

Luke almost retorted that he wouldn't have even attempted a drop-kick Koiogran turn if she hadn't been right up his thrusters, but the whine of a repulsorlift grew louder.

Lucinda frowned. "That's not one of Captain Karrde's ships."

Mara's expression pinched with determination. "It's not. Into the trees, all of you, **move**!"

The little girl sprang into the forest edge at Mara's command, and Artoo scooted after her. Luke plunged through the scant bushes and dodged around the trees, carrying the survival kit from his fighter. Mara was right on his heels, so close the tip of her redrawn blaster brushed against his back. About twenty meters in, he bent to help Artoo over a wide tree root. "Far enough," Mara ordered. "Hide the droid and hit the dirt."

The tree trunk was wide enough to screen Artoo's body. Lucinda stretched out on the ground behind the root, her head turned to her mother and her hand clamped over her mouth. Luke flattened himself next to her and looked back at what had alarmed them so.

A Lambda shuttle rotated in the air above the wrecked fighters. 

Mara crouched over her child to press against Luke and whisper into his ear. "You give us away and I will shoot you." Then she withdrew, lay on Lucinda's other side, and wrapped her free arm over the trembling child.

They watched the shuttle settle on the torn-up ground between the ruined fighters. The ramp dropped before it finished moving and disgorged stormtroopers. White armored figures split into three groups and two searched the fighters. The rest walked around the edge of the clearing with portable sensors. 

All the while, Mara kept her blaster ready to fire and made no move to alert the stormtroopers. But Karrde had planned to turn Luke over to the Imperials? 

After a few minutes that felt so much longer, the Skipray searchers emerged and held a meeting at the shuttle's ramp. All the perimeter searchers returned, and the detail boarded. The shuttle's ramp sealed and lifted into the sky.

Luke waited until he could no longer hear the repulsorlifts before moving. Mara might be pissed that he stranded them here and that saving him had divided her with her boss, but she didn't want to see him in Imperial custody. "Well—"

"Quiet," Mara muttered. "They'll have left a sensor behind, just in case someone comes back. Grab some distance." She seized her survival kit and headed further away from the clearing. Lucinda scrambled off the ground, chased after her mother, and seized Mara's left wrist above the case.

Luke grabbed his survival kit and encouraged Artoo out from behind the tree. The woman was favoring her right leg but set a quick pace. Artoo kept just as quiet as the organics, and at least the pair in the lead made a path around the larger roots.

Between fifty and sixty meters from the crash site, Lucinda tugged on her mother's arm. Mara stopped and looked down at her. "We're far enough now. Sit down."

Lucinda plopped on the ground with a boneless ease. It tempted Luke to react the same way, but he decided it was better to kneel in front of his survival kit and dig out a ration bar. There were twenty-four packed inside, enough to last a crew of four three days eating twice a day. He pulled out three.

Mara had opened her survival kit but had only removed a small flat case that she now had on her lap. She was frowning down at it and tapping keys inside it. Must be some kind of micro-console. "Food, Mara?"

"I ate," she answered without looking up.

"I didn't." Lucinda wilted a bit as Mara looked at her. "I was going to eat after I got back to my room."

"Catch." Luke tossed Lucinda a ration bar and then stowed the extra back in the kit before eating his.

The little girl wasn't so eager to tear into hers. "You said they weren't chasing us anymore."

"They weren't, otherwise, they would have ventured into the forest." Mara's attention focused back to the micro-console. "The incoming shuttles must have seen us go down and sent a detail to investigate. Karrde's going to spin them a sugar story about what happened, and we can't walk into their arms until we know what that story is."

Lucinda nodded and opened her ration bar. Luke frowned as he swallowed his last bite. "Stormtroopers have chased you?"

"You think you're the only one to have ever been on an Imperial most wanted list?" Mara snapped before the micro-console beeped. "We've got a three-day hike to the edge of the forest at Hyllyard City." She closed the micro-console and packed it into her survival kit.

That was an abrupt subject change. Did Lucinda's father cause their Imperial trouble? "That doesn't sound so bad," Luke offered.

"Three days on foot avoiding vornskrs and making sure the Imperials didn't leave any watchers in the sky." Her voice was as dry as the Western Dune Sea. "Your droid can't keep up."

It wasn't fair to pick on Artoo when it was likely her little girl couldn't keep up either, but Luke avoided that comparison. "Artoo has traversed forests before just fine."

{Endor was okay,} Artoo whistled. {It was dry. Dagobah.} He added a blat sound. {Stop going to Dagobah, Luke.}

Mara shook her head. "It knows too much about this whole situation. If the Imperials get their hands on it, Karrde is a dead man. They won't find out anything if it's in pieces."

Both Luke and Lucinda looked at Mara in disbelief while Artoo moaned. "How can he teach me Binary if you take him apart?" Lucinda asked.

"Who said anything about you learning Binary?"

"Not an option, Mara," Luke said. "Besides, he's your best bet to get a message to Karrde, assuming you have some way of transmitting a comm signal in that survival kit."

Mara's expression was suspicious. "There's a sonde balloon included that can take the antenna high enough, past most of the forest damping. But it's non-directional, which means the Imperials will listen in."

"Forest damping?" Lucinda asked as she brushed a ration bar crumb off her cleft chin.

"The vegetation here limits sensor ranges down to practically zero," Mara said.

"Artoo can encrypt it so that no one else will get anything out of it," Luke said.

"Wonderful." Mara smirked. "Except for one minor detail: if the encryption is that good, how is Karrde supposed to decrypt it?"

"He won't have to. The computer in my X-wing will do it for him."

"That's impossible. You can't do a counterpart encrypt between an astromech droid and a ship computer, Skywalker."

"Why not? Artoo's the only droid who's worked with that computer in over five years, with close to three thousand hours of flight time. He's bound to have molded it to his own personality by now. In fact, I know he has—the ground crew has to run diagnostics through him to make any sense out of them."

Lucinda crumpled her ration bar wrapper into her trousers pocket. "You don't wipe his memories? I thought military ships had to."

"I like Artoo the way he is," Luke said. "The X-wing is my personal ship and we're not part of any military unit, so that rule doesn't apply. And he and the X-wing work better together this way."

"How much better?" Mara asked.

Maintenance had run that test just a few months ago, but so much had happened in between. "I don't remember the exact number. It was something like thirty percent faster than a baseline astromech/X-wing interface. Or closer to thirty-five."

Mara stared hard at Artoo. "That's counterpart-level speed, all right. The Imperials could still crack it, though."

"Eventually. But it would take some specialized equipment to do it. And you said we'd be out of here in three days."

Her gaze moved back to Luke. "Your ship's sitting all alone out in the forest. How are you going to get the message back to Karrde?"

"Someone will check on the ship, sooner or later. All we have to do is dump the message into storage and leave some kind of signal flashing that it's there. You have people who know how to pull a dump, don't you?"

"Any idiot knows how to pull a dump. But all your answers don't change that it will take forever for your droid to get across this terrain."

Luke spotted a tree with two low branches just the right size, moved and knelt in front of Mara. She didn't draw back from the sudden closeness. His desire to close the gap with a kiss nearly flattened him. He knocked that desire back with how that wasn't right; he had hurt her, and she had moved on. Ignored the pins and needles in his prosthetic hand, he unclipped his lightsaber from her belt.

She quirked an eyebrow, but otherwise didn't stop him as he stood up. Lucinda turned a very puzzled face between him and her mother, though. Luke tried to ignore that as he ignited the lightsaber and trimmed, shortened, and cut the branches from the tree. He clipped it back to his belt before reaching down for the branches.

Now Lucinda's expression was an open mouth of astonishment. Mara meanwhile had dug a coil of high tension wire out of her survival kit and tossed it to him. She glanced upward at the darkening sky. "Come on, get busy with a travois. We must find a clearing to put the sonde balloon up, and I want to get that done before nightfall."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since images are usually easier to remember, have a portrait of Lucinda Jade while I work on the title banner for this story.


	5. Chapter Five

  
  


It wasn't much further before they crossed one of the small clearings that dotted the forest and sent the encrypted message to Karrde. Mara insisted they push on further before stopping at a large tree bole and underneath its canopy as the last bit of dark blue faded from the gaps between the foliage, leaving blackness above them. "We'll make camp here." 

She eased down and pulled out the survival kit's worklight and set it to its lowest setting. Now that they had answered the most pressing survival needs, she had time to pay attention to her throbbing ankle and the two people she hadn't expected to become traveling companions. She had hoped to get a spare moment to confess to Skywalker, but now she was second guessing that. His family were all targeted by Thrawn.

Lucinda took the make camp announcement as time to talk. She closed in on Luke. "You're Luke Skywalker. Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker."

He opened his survival kit. "I am."

"You blew up the Death Star."

"The first one I did." He pulled the thermal blanket from the kit.

"You killed Jabba the Hutt."

Mara wondered where this hero worship came from. She hadn't passed on any Luke Skywalker stories to Lucinda, and she had made sure the history lessons were accurate for the events and not holodrama stories. She pulled a glow rod out from her survival kit, so it would be out and ready.

He flattened the blanket next to the tree. "No, I fought all his guards and bounty hunters which gave my sister the chance to kill him."

Lucinda grinned. "Dankin is telling it wrong!"

_So it's Dankin's fault_ , Mara thought ruefully.

"You're Luke Skywalker," Lucinda's voice got serious. "What are you doing on Myrkr?"

_And I haven't taught her how to not give information away._

"Ask your mother."

Mara cocked her head as she glared at him. She couldn't believe he just said that.

He ignored her glare as he held out his hand. "Let's treat your leg."

"It's fine," she insisted.

"It's not, and you should not hike for three days on a damaged limb."

Becoming a Jedi had improved his confidence, Mara observed, but she wasn't sure if she approved of that right now. "It's just my ankle and you can't do Jedi magic to it, not on Myrkr."

"I was going to do Rebel-trained medpac on it. You have a problem with that?"

She grabbed his hand, and he leveraged her up and then set her on the thermal blanket. He shifted her survival kit with the lit worklight to her feet. He lifted her right leg and pushed the survival kit under to use as a footrest.

Lucinda waited until both adults settled. "Mommy, why is Luke Skywalker here?"

Mara glared at Luke again, but he ignored it as he untied her boot. She set the glow rod in her lap and drew her blaster out of the forearm holster. "You need to watch for vornskrs." She held out the blaster.

Luci took it and turned to face the dark forest with excellent form. She had practiced that, at least while Mara was away. Luke's expression was sabacc-blank, so he was hiding how he felt. "You think an eight-year-old is too young to know how to shoot."

His eyebrows raised at her snappish tone. "Has someone critiqued your parenting? I was shooting a Czerka 6-2Aug2 hunting rifle when I was her age." 

She was expecting critique and argument about what she had done for nine years. And her fear of losing Lucinda still hadn't recovered from learning what Thrawn was up to only to get revved up by seeing her childhood lessons in action followed by stormtroopers who would add the Jades to Thrawn's collection of Force sensitives. And it all could've been avoided had Luke just waited in the shed! Luke peeled off her sock, and Mara sucked in her breath from the throbbing and swelling.

Lucinda looked over her shoulder. "You had a slugthrower when you were a kid? Why?"

"Watch the forest," Mara reminded her.

Luci huffed, but she turned her head back. The droid rocked into place to Mara's right and rotated a sensor dish extended from its dome, so they covered both sides of the camp.

Luke dug for the medpac out of his survival kit. "Blasters are expensive on worlds with harsh climates, which Tatooine qualifies. Slugthrowers take less maintenance, and you can make slugs if you want to take the time." He found the medisensor and aimed it at her ankle. "Second-degree sprain. I think you hurt it worse with the running."

"Well, I wasn't slowly sauntering away from stormtroopers," Mara said.

His gaze shifted back to the medpac. "You should have just turned me in."

Her back straightened right off the tree bole, but his grip on her leg kept that from jerking off the improvised footrest. "You idiot! I was trying to keep them from learning we had you, which you didn't help at all."

He found the flexible tape and began winding it around her ankle and foot to immobilize it. He did it correctly, and she couldn't find fault. "They came to dinner," he said without looking up.

"No, they were uninvited. We had another set of guests that Karrde figured didn't need to know about you. And since we haven't heard any orbital bombardment, Karrde got them out of Imperial sight." She took a deep breath against the throbbing in her ankle. "For the last time, I don't want to see you in Imperial hands. Especially now that they have ysalamiri. And if Karrde decided in their favor, I was planning on telling you that and equipping you to help your escape."

He looked up at her face, the lingering suspicion clearing from his blue eyes. Her heart turned over in her chest. Nine years, nine years, she should not still have a weakness for those blue eyes after nine years!

Mara's other weakness scuffed her foot against a root. "Why are the Imperials after him? Is it just 'cause you're New Republic or is it something else?" Lucinda didn't turn around with her questions this time.

Mara leaned back against the bole with a sigh. "The Imperials have a new bounty out on him since he broke his hyperdrive getting away from them. We found him on the _Wild Karrde_ 's last flight."

"You found me." Luke concentrated on winding the flexible tape around her foot. "Karrde gave you all the credit for that."

Mara didn't want to get into a philosophical debate over what the Force was doing by leading her to him after nine years, so she spoke of her lingering outrage. "Why didn't you just stay put?"

He sighed. "I am sorry for all this. I was trying to get you out of divided loyalties."

He did it for her? She shook her head; of course he did. "Only you could cause this much trouble doing someone a favor, Luke."

"Lucinda's father," he nodded at the little girl without looking at Mara, "must be panicking back at the base."

Oh damn. She wasn't ready for this conversation. Not in front of Lucinda, not to put them both on the spot without any reflection on it. "He's not—"

Lucinda interrupted. "He doesn't care about me. He left Mommy knocked up."

"Who told you that?!" Mara demanded, looking at Lucinda's back. She suspected Karrde had some theories he was using this whole situation to find answers for, but if he was questioning her daughter behind her back, he would rue it.

Luci's shoulders jerked up to her ears. "Ghent," she answered, sounding sorry to get the young man in trouble.

That was less troubling. Mara sighed. "Do not get biographical details of your life from Ghent; he wasn't there. We didn't meet him until you were three and I had to give you the job of keeping him fed because he only looked up from his consoles when he was getting shot at." She looked at Luke, who was pretending fascination with her ankle. "Her father doesn't work for Karrde."

Luke met her eyes with his own. "And didn't keep in touch."

She didn't want him to feel bad about that. She smiled. "You may have missed it, but there was a war going on."

"Still going on." Luke's shoulders slumped as he finished wrapping her ankle and put the flexible tape away.

"Wait, he was running away from the base." Lucinda's voice grew puzzled as she faced the forest. "You found him, but he was running away. You were trying to keep him here?"

"Captain Karrde was keeping Jedi Skywalker here." Mara kept her voice calm. Lucinda was about to go shrill over this, which was probably something else to blame Luke for. "I was trying to keep the Imperials from finding him."

Lucinda whirled around to face the adults and remembered to aim the blaster at the ground. "But Captain Karrde can't just keep people! It's wrong!"

And there it was. Luke smothered his laugh as he set a medical cold pack over her bandaged ankle. Well, if Karrde hadn't had a hellacious time with this venture of who will pay more for a Jedi yet, the Jades would finish that off. "Luci-love, when we get back to the base, I'll make sure that you can tell Captain Karrde keeping people is wrong and you can explain that in great detail."

Lucinda considered that. "Will you lose your job? I'll do it, but you like this job."

"After this fiasco, I'm sure Captain Karrde has learned his lesson." Mara held her hand out for the blaster. She was looking at a suspicious shadow behind Luke.

The droid's dome rotated a few degrees, and it gave a quiet gurgle. "I think Artoo's picked up something." Luke twisted to face the darkness.

"No kidding," Mara said. She aimed the glow rod's beam over Luke's shoulder.

A vornskr stood in the circle of light, its front claws dug into the ground, its whip tail pointed back and waving slowly up and down. It ignored the light as it stepped forward, its attention focused on Luke.

The beast stepped forward twice before the blaster bolt drilled neatly through its head. It collapsed to the ground, its tail giving one last twitch before doing likewise.

"Be faster on the trigger next time, Lucinda," Mara corrected. She played the glow rod over the area, but there were no more suspicious shadows.

"Sorry, I thought the light might scare it off."

"We know better now," Luke said. "Thank you." He nodded at her before he dug into the medpac again.

Lucinda grinned as she skipped to Mara's side and handed back to the holdout blaster. Mara drew her down to sit next to her. Luci yawned and pulled Mara's arm around her.

"Are Karrde's pet vornskrs a different species?" Luke asked. "Or did he have their tails removed?"

Mara blinked at him, impressed at his Jedi calm. Most men staring down a vornskr's gullet wouldn't have noticed a detail like that. "The latter," she told him. "They use those tails as whips—painful alone, but there's a mild poison in them too. At first it was just that Karrde didn't want his people walking around with whip welts all over them; he found out later that removing the tails also kills a lot of their normal hunting aggression."

"They seemed domestic," he said. "Even friendly."

"They were friendly to you?" Lucinda exclaimed. "They keep trying to eat me."

"They weren't that friendly," Mara admitted. "They do better around people who aren't Force sensitive. Karrde's thought about offering them for sale as guard animals. Never gotten around to exploring the potential market."

"Well, you can tell him I'd be glad to serve as a reference." Luke said. "Having looked a vornskr square in the teeth, I can tell you it's not something the average intruder would like to do twice." He moved to Mara's right side and poured some tablets into the palm of his right hand. "Pain killers." He held them out to her.

She shook her head. "Those will blunt my reaction time."

Exasperation finally crossed his face. "I can shoot the vornskrs tonight. You have to rest that ankle."

She glared at him but half-heartedly and then took his hand and licked the three tablets from the palm. That contact jolted him from his Jedi stoicism and a flush spread over his face. He looked away, abashed. There was a glimpse of the younger man she had known within the Jedi. She passed the holdout blaster to him.

He walked around to settle on the left and pressed his back against the tree. Lucinda yawned again between them and snuggled closer to Mara. 

"Myrkr," he said. "Reminds me of Endor. A forest always sounds so busy at night."

"Oh, it's busy, all right," Mara said. "A lot of the animals here are nocturnal. Including the vornskrs."

"Strange," he murmured. "Karrde's pets seemed wide enough awake in late afternoon."

She wanted to rest her head on his shoulder. Luckily, the space between them prevented it. "They take small naps around the clock. So do the wild ones. I call them nocturnal because they do most of their hunting at night."

He mulled that over for a moment. "Maybe we ought to travel at night," he suggested. "They'll be hunting us either way—at least then we'd be awake and alert while they were on the prowl."

Mara shook her head. "It'd be more trouble than it's worth. We need to see the terrain if we're going to avoid running into dead ends. Besides, small clearings are as numerous as the trees in this forest."

"Through which a glow rod beam would be visible to an orbiting ship. Okay, we'll travel by day. Good night, Mara."

Her arm tightened around Lucinda as she closed her eyes. "Good night, Luke."

* * *

Lucinda was more than ready to make camp after so much walking, all day walking since the sun came up. But Mommy had looked at the sun and decided they could push on further. She didn't dare bring up stopping again, but it was getting so hard to walk faster. She had to because Jedi Skywalker was pulling the travois with Artoo behind her. It would be impolite to slow him down and just stupid to get run over because she didn't get out of the way. But it was getting hard to keep up with Mommy. It didn't look like she was stopping for them, ever.

Her shoulders fell seeing how far ahead Mommy was. She missed her room, chiefly her bed back at the base. The base was no longer so boring, and she no longer wished Mommy would let her go into the forest. She quickened her feet, even if they didn't want to go faster, and they scuffed against the roots and clumps of grass. Sunlight and shadows from the sun sinking in the trees to the right spotted the ground. She wasn't getting closer to Mommy, but she had gotten further ahead of Jedi Skywalker.

Mommy knew Jedi Skywalker. She was giving Lucinda reminders to be polite and call him by his surname and title, but she called him by just his first name a lot. And Mommy didn't do that with anyone else. She always used their surnames.

And since Lucinda didn't remember him at all, it must have been before she was born. She had remembered Ghent when Captain Karrde introduced her and Mommy to the rest of his associates, and the slicer had been so surprised, "But you were so little then!" She remembered a lot more than people thought she would—running from stormtroopers, the crummy jobs that Mommy hated, the bounty hunter who hadn't put her down when Mommy told him to—so she was certain she would remember Jedi Skywalker too. When Mommy met him must have been before Lucinda was born or when she was a tiny baby. No, before, because Jedi Skywalker hadn't known her name. He would have used it when she yelled at him back in the Skipray.

Mommy hated talking about before. She said nothing about Lucinda's father, and just a few details about her own childhood. Mommy was from Coruscant and loved going to the opera there. She had had dancing lessons with all her other classes and practiced them by teaching Lucinda. Luci wanted to move that pretty, but she felt tied down by gravity while Mommy soared like an avian.

But there hadn't been a hint of Mommy in any of the holodramas she had watched covering the adventures of Luke Skywalker. Mommy had told her that the holodramas took what happened and made it bigger and more exciting. Aves had said the same thing to Chin and Ghent after they had finished _Luke Skywalker and the Citadel of Ktath'atn_ , that there was no way it could be true. And Jedi Skywalker already told her how Dankin was telling Jabba's death wrong. He would tell her the other things the holodramas got wrong.

Her right foot kicked through what she thought was just a clump of grass and plowed through a clump of dirt instead. Dirt clung to her boot and tiny insects crawled out of it. "Ugh!" She jumped away from the mound and stomped her feet. The dirt fell away, but the red bugs were still on her. "Ugh!"

"Lucinda?" Jedi Skywalker stopped before he reached the remains of the dirt nest.

"Solenopsis biters, be careful." She bent over and brushed the tiny segmented bodies off her boot and trousers. Luckily, she had tucked her trousers into her boots, so they didn't find any skin to bite on her legs. And her hands were moving too fast for them to bite there. She stomped again and was sure they were all off her now.

Artoo squealed. Lucinda jerked her head up to look at the droid. Jedi Skywalker dropped the handles of the travois and grabbed her off the ground. She was against his chest before she could cry out. There was a solid thump on the ground behind her. The cackle/purr cry was louder than the snap-hiss of the lightsaber. Her hands tightened on Jedi Skywalker, but she looked over her shoulder, anyway.

The vornskr crouched in the spot she had been in, and the green glow of the lightsaber made its yellow eyes glow more. Jedi Skywalker had the blade extended from his left hand between them and the predator. It didn't seem to care and continued staring at them without blinking.

"This is why everyone at the base said stay with the crashed ship on Myrkr," she whispered.

"I'm sure they weren't thinking of stormtroopers when they told you that." Jedi Skywalker tightened his grip on her, but otherwise didn't move.

The vornskr tightened its crouch to spring, but the blaster bolt hit it and it crumpled to the ground instead.

"What were you waiting for?" Mommy said as she stomped closer.

Jedi Skywalker shut off the lightsaber. "I haven't practiced left-handed dueling that much, specifically not while holding a child." He set Lucinda on the ground and stepped closer to the vornskr's body, making sure the blaster bolt killed it.

"I'm fine," Lucinda blurted, so Mommy wouldn't look so worried. And it was true, if she ignored how hard her heart was still beating.

Mommy stopped stomping, but her lips pressed together. They finally parted to say, "Whoever trained you in lightsaber should have made sure you were ambidextrous."

Jedi Skywalker smirked at Mommy. "That's something for me to work on." He wouldn't think that was funny if he watched Mommy at the target range.

"Can we take a rest?" Lucinda asked Mommy. "Please?"

Mommy didn't tell her not to whine but looked at the angle of the sun instead. "We have to go while we can. I'll carry you."

"You can't," Jedi Skywalker said.

Mommy's eyes narrowed. He should know how Mommy didn't like anyone telling her she can't do anything.

"Not with your ankle the way it is," he continued before turning to Lucinda. "Do you trust me enough to ride my back while I pull the travois?"

She did trust him, now that they weren't flying. "I can do that." She hadn't ridden Mommy's back for years, but Mommy wasn't objecting, so Lucinda climbed onto Jedi Skywalker's back, squeezing his waist with her legs and holding onto his shoulders.

Mommy rested her hand on Lucinda's back, looking wistful as Jedi Skywalker stood up. The expression she didn't see often on Mommy's face disappeared as she lifted the travois handles to Jedi Skywalker's hands. "You have it?"

"Lead the way." He followed behind Mommy, and it seemed like they were going faster than she could. She watched the tree branches they walked under but didn't see any vornskrs waiting up there. "You okay?" He asked over his shoulder.

"I'm okay," Luci answered. "Is your sister really a princess?"

"Yes, she is. Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan."

"How come you're not a prince?"

"Because a royal family didn't adopt me. Our aunt and uncle raised me."

She adjusted her grip on his shoulders. "They didn't want both of you?"

Jedi Skywalker sighed. "I don't think they were given a choice. The remainder of the Jedi Order was trying to keep us safe from the Emperor, so they separated us."

That was sad, and they didn't meet again until they had grown up. That had been in her New Republic lesson. Better to move onto something not sad. "Is she going to be a Jedi too?"

"One day. Right now, she's busy with her duties as Minister of State."

He didn't sound like he was tired of her asking questions. It was easy to tell when she annoyed adults. "So, what happened in the Citadel of Ktath'atn?"

"The what?"

She was sure that she said it the same way the actors had on the holodrama. "The Citadel of Ktath'atn; we saw a holodrama about it."

Mommy was close enough to hear, and she whirled around. "What holodrama did you watch?"

Lucinda sighed. " _Luke Skywalker and the Citadel of Ktath'atn_. Aves, Chin, and Ghent all made sure it was age appropriate."

Jedi Skywalker chuckled. "Had to explain that a few times to the smugglers?"

"Captain Karrde did," Luci explained. "He said they were all responsible for me turning out as well as Mirax Terrik."

"Well, that's a goal."

Mommy frowned. "You know Mirax?"

"We have friends in common, but I haven't met her yet." He aimed the next over his shoulder to Lucinda. "But your mother is right. Some holodramas with my name on them are not nice stories for kids, and you shouldn't watch them." He sighed as they started moving again.

"Have you watched them?" Mommy asked, and it sounded like she was trying not to laugh.

"I try not to," he said. "After seeing how much they _improved_ upon what happened on the first Death Star in the first one, I don't want to. And I doubly don't want to see the ones they outright made up because events haven't been declassified yet. But some of my friends think it's funny to pass the ale and see my reactions while watching them."

"That doesn't sound very nice," Lucinda said.

"They're trying to build my immunity by exposure," he said. "Krayt dragons don't breathe fire if you've seen _Luke Skywalker and the Dragons of Tatooine_."

If Mommy was in one of the holodramas, it was probably one Lucinda couldn't watch. She let go of finding that out right now. "But they make holodramas out of things that happened to you?"

"What's been declassified for them to use, yes."

"Did they change the names about the Citadel? Or did they change the stuff that happened there? Because Aves didn't believe that could happen, and I want to tell him what really happened. Did psychic bugs try to take over your brain?"

"Is there a species of psychic bugs?"

Mommy shrugged. "I haven't met any."

"I haven't had any bugs try to take over my brain, so they probably made that part up. But I haven't seen that one, so I don't know what they are basing it on."

"Oh. Do you want me to tell you about it then?"

"Sure, why not? Maybe I'll win the next Rogues drinking while viewing game."

Lucinda didn't understand how knowing about the holodrama would help win drinking ale or how they had made that a game, but she ignored the weirdness from adults and tell the holodrama. "Okay, you went to a cantina all alone, and the non-humans in the cantina didn't like humans and started fighting you. A human female, Aphra, helped you in the fight because she wanted your help."

"Introducing the love interest early, I see," Mommy said.

"No, another girl kissed Aphra later, not Jedi Skywalker. Only you weren't a Jedi yet, you kept repeating that over and over again. Not that anyone else listened. They kept calling you Jedi."

"Before the Battle of Hoth then?" Jedi Skywalker glanced back at her as best he could.

"I guess so. They talked about the Battle of Yavin. Anyway, Aphra had an ancient crystal with a dead Jedi recorded in it."

"A crystal, not a holocron?"

Lucinda blinked. "I thought you said you didn't see it? Aphra said the crystal was weird because it wasn't a holocron."

"Holocrons are what the Jedi used to record themselves for other Jedi," he explained. "I haven't found many; I think the Empire destroyed them in the Purge. So, the writer of this holodrama gets points for getting terminology right. What did Aphra want for the crystal?"

"She wanted to play it and see what it said about a thousand years ago. But you couldn't turn it on. Her next idea was to take it to the Queen of the Ktath'atn and get her to activate the crystal. She talked you into going."

"Upgrading from a Princess to a Queen," Mommy said. "You get around in the holodramas."

"Something that has endlessly amused my friends, who know it isn't true."

"So, the Queen holds a party once a year to grant somebody their request if they impress her with a unique gift." Lucinda took a deep breath. "Aphra got you to dress up and gave you to the Queen at the party."

Mommy barked out a laugh. 

"They went there in a children's holodrama?" Jedi Skywalker sounded dismayed.

"Went where? The Queen told you to come to breakfast after you shoved someone with the Force."

"Not slavery?"

"No, she wanted to make you and Aphra part of her hive."

Mommy laughed again. "Of course, she did."

"That's not a good thing, Mommy. The Queen sucked energy from members of her hive to battle a Jedi. She wanted to eat Jedi Skywalker!"

Mommy tried to stifle her snickers but didn't do a good job. 

Lucinda ignored her mother's rude behavior over the story the woman was not taking seriously at all and continued. "They put the psychic bugs on the breakfast table, so you and Aphra would get infected and the bugs would have your bodies. You ran and fought and got out and that's when the Princess, Han Solo, and Aphra's old girlfriend showed up to rescue you. Only that doesn't work, and everybody ends up running and fighting the rest of the hive."

Jedi Skywalker shook his head. "I'm sad to say that bit sounds accurate for many rescue missions."

"So, it really happened?"

"I don't think so, but how does it end?"

"Han Solo got taken over by a bug and started fighting against all of you. The Queen caught Aphra, but the Queen decided that she delivered a Jedi and activated the crystal for her. Then you got infected, but the bug in you decided it wanted to be king of the hive and got into a psychic battle with the Queen. Aphra decided not to run away and got the working crystal near you so the Jedi inside could tell you how to win. Only he wasn't a Jedi and he wanted all your power and the power of the hive, so you didn't listen to him. You detached from the psychic bug all on your own. The Queen killed it but was shocked when you didn't die and you slashed her with your lightsaber." Lucinda frowned, remembering a detail about that. "They got your lightsaber wrong. It had a blue blade."

"They got that right if they set the holodrama close to the Battle of Yavin. I was using my father's lightsaber then, and it had a blue blade. This one I built and the kyber crystal inside turned it green."

"Oh. Well, without the Queen, the hive fell apart, and people started waking up. Han got the psychic bug taken out of his head and you told Aphra that nothing worthwhile is easy and people who think there's a shortcut to getting what they want are deluded."

"Ah, there it is. The ever-redeeming moral to make up for the ridiculousness of the rest of it," Mommy said. 

Artoo whistled and beeped from the travois behind her. They hadn't started Binary lessons yet, so she didn't know what he said. 

"Artoo wants to know what he and Threepio were doing in this holodrama." Jedi Skywalker asked.

"They weren't in it. Aphra had some bad droids with her. It left out Chewbacca too for a Wookiee bounty hunter."

Artoo screeched. Mommy whirled around with her blaster drawn. Lucinda cringed against Jedi Skywalker's back. Jedi Skywalker sighed. "How about you save that volume for the vornskrs, Artoo? Sorry, he's just upset that they wrote him and Threepio out."

Mommy glared, but only shook her head and turned back around.

"I'm sorry you weren't in the holodrama," Lucinda said over her shoulder.

Artoo beeped at her.

"He knows it's not your fault," Jedi Skywalker said. "Don't worry about it. When Artoo and Threepio have some time together, they'll send a comm to the executives in charge of the holodrama about everything they got wrong with droid representation."

Artoo beeped again, but his tone sounded embarrassed to Lucinda.

Jedi Skywalker let out a ragged sigh. "Of course, I know about those. You two use my comm console to send them. Though I appreciate you erasing the data, so it doesn't look like **I** sent them."

Artoo whistled at him.

Jedi Skywalker sighed again, but this one sounded more like Mommy's when she thought something was funny but trying to hide that. "It sounds like a good holodrama, Lucinda, but nothing like that has ever happened to me. I'm afraid they made all of it up."

Lucinda pouted. She had wanted it to be a real adventure, and she wanted to know what adventure he had met Mommy on, but she couldn't just ask. Mommy wouldn't tell her and wouldn't let Jedi Skywalker tell her either. "Are you okay with them just making up stories about you?"

"Most of the time, it's embarrassing. I'm not the dashing hero they put in those stories; I'm just Luke. Wars don't make one great."

"And I guess having holodramas with your name on them don't make you great either."

"True." It sounded like Jedi Skywalker was smiling. "Do you want to start on Binary now?"

"Yes!" She hadn't forgotten her curiosity about Mommy, but it could wait.


	6. Chapter Six

  
  


The holographic image of a golden-skinned protocol droid vanished, and the astromech's projector winked out. Mara scowled as she shut down the communicator, setting the antenna spool to wind the balloon back down for the third time. Talon Karrde was the best boss she had ever worked for—including the man who had raised her and then threatened her and her child. But Karrde was taking liberties to figure out if his theories were correct. She had known she had stroked Karrde's curiosity with her provisions for Lucinda should anything happen to her, by how she argued to stay out of the Skywalker mess, and by how she had acted on the _Wild Karrde_ when Dankin almost poisoned Luke with sedatives. But this plan was going too far. She repacked the deflated balloon and detached the wires from the astromech droid.

"Mommy?" Lucinda pushed off the tree that Luke was sleeping against. That didn't appear to wake him. "Are we going to use that plan?"

"It's a good idea," Luke murmured.

She looked at his still closed eyes. "Faking sleep?"

"Not faking," he answered sleepily. "Drifting in and out. It's still a good idea."

She snorted. "I don't think your farm boy honesty can maintain a cover that long. We'll try going a couple kilometers north instead, circling out and back to Hyllyard City from the plains." She glanced at her chrono, then up through the trees. Dark clouds had moved in over the past few minutes, covering the blue sky that had been there when they had stopped. Not rain clouds, but dense enough to cut into the available daylight of their second day of hiking.

They had made good time, and today's hike had fatigued her along with the watch she had kept last night. "We might as well save that for tomorrow," she said as she stood. Her right ankle was feeling healed, but she watched how much weight she put on it. "You want to get—oh, never mind," she interrupted herself. If his breathing was anything to go by, he had drifted off again. So much for letting him sleep all night after packing Lucinda on his back during the first day. She didn't know what made him so tired, but he had been almost dropping the travois all day today.

Which left putting camp together up to her and Lucinda. "Luci, get the thermal blankets out of the other survival kit." The little girl nodded and pulled the kit from the tree bole. Mara turned back to where she had dropped her survival kit.

The droid's electronic shriek made her spin back around, her hand clawing for her blaster, eyes flicking around for the danger—

A massive weight slammed full onto her shoulders and back, raking hot needles into and over her skin and throwing her face-first to the ground. As Lucinda screamed, Mara wished desperately that her daughter wasn't witnessing this.

Four points on her back radiated pain as the weight shifted and compressed her chest against the ground. Sweltering breath blasted against her head and ear. She couldn't cover her vulnerable neck with her arms.

A shivering, booming, inhuman howl filled the entire clearing and reverberated back from the distant hills. The vornskr lifted its head away from her neck but didn't move off her back. The howl repeated, but the animal crouched on top of her and let out a loud crackle-purr.

A snap-hiss of a lightsaber answered that.

The feet on her back didn't shift their position, but the weight shifted again and something whistled through the air. But it ended against the lightsaber's hum as it moved through the air. And the vornskr screamed.

It leaped backward off her back, and the claws dug in during the movement. Mara gritted her teeth against the cry of pain in her throat. It didn't pause as it leaped into the air, and she heard the lightsaber move through the air again. A meaty weight landed on her back again.

* * *

Luke shut off the lightsaber and returned it to his belt. The vornskr's front half and its whip-like tail rested at his feet, and its hindquarters were on Mara's still body. Lucinda heaved before she screamed again, "Mommy!" 

"Lucinda, get the medpac out of my survival kit." He ordered as he moved and knelt beside Mara's right side. Her face was turned in this direction. 

Lucinda jerkily nodded and left the thermal blanket at her feet as she turned to the survival kit.

He pushed the vornskr body off of Mara. Blood welled from the four torn spots on her shirt and obscured just how many slashes were on her body. He ignored the smell of the char caused by the lightsaber and the blood from Mara and how his heart pounded that he couldn't lose her, not when he had found her again and checked her unblemished neck for a pulse.

"I'm with you." Mara said with a stronger wheeze as she replenished the air in her lungs. The green eye he saw blinked as she tried to look at him.

Luke's left fingers brushed against her cheek. The pounding of his heart eased as he sighed. "Good. Is it hard to breathe?"

"It didn't get my lungs," she answered.

He hadn't been sure that the vornskr's claws had not dug further into her back when it crouched on top of her, but that sounded hopeful. Lucinda breathed hard enough for all three of them as she carried the medpac to Luke. Her blue eyes welled with tears as they looked down at Mara. He took the medpac. "Thank you. Now we need the Water JugFilter."

That broke her attention from Mara's wounds. "Right." She dashed across the clearing to the survival kit.

He leaned back and looked at Mara's damaged shirt. "I'll try to save your tunic, Mara."

"I'm not that attached to it," she said in a stronger voice.

He tugged the hem out from under her belt, double-checked the grip on the material in his numb right hand, and ripped it apart. The rend zigzagged from hole to hole, lifting fabric bits and threads from the bloody wounds gaping on her back. The rip ended at the collar.

Lucinda ran back with the water canteen and gasped at the four bloody spots. He took the canteen from her. "Lucinda, I need your help."

She jerked to focus on his face. "Do I need to guard?" She curled up her shaking hands into fists.

"I need you to open things from the medpac." He pressed the canteen against his chest with his right forearm and opened it with his left. "My right hand has gone numb. I don't want to lose the medicine your mother needs."

"Okay." She collapsed in front of the medpac beside Luke and opened it. Her wide blue eyes focused on him. "What first?"

"The gauze pack." He poured the water over Mara's back, rinsing the blood and anything left in the wounds away.

Mara clenched her teeth and breathed through them as her entire body tightened against the pain.

He took the gauze wad and wiped the excess water away. "Open the bacta salve next." The bloody spots reduced to six gashes with three down each of her shoulder blades and four punctures in her low back. "I don't see any bone, but they're bleeding freely." Raised scar tissue marked Mara's spine down the length of her back. He had never seen that result from any weapons or medical procedures. This wasn't the time to ask about it. 

Lucinda tapped his arm as she passed open the bacta salve tube. He dolloped the salve into the bleeding wounds and smeared it into them with a quick swipe of his left hand.

Mara hissed but said nothing.

"Mommy?" Lucinda focused on her again.

"It stings a little."

"Open the largest bacta bandage," Luke said. Lucinda twisted back to the medpac and dug into the supplies. She ripped into the packaging before passing the self-adhesive bandage to him. It was a little smaller than the width of Luke's hand, and it covered the wound, not needing a second one. He made sure it sealed against her skin before moving to the next one.

Mara shook as he continued to bandage the wounds. He pressed the last bandage over the puncture wounds on her pelvic bone. "Lucinda, spread a thermal blanket under the tree." She jumped up to do that. Luke slipped his right arm under Mara's stomach between her shirt and skin pressing up to her breasts. The vornskr had missed her supportive basic. He held her against her chest as he used his left hand to strip the remains of the filthy tunic from her.

Mara pressed a hand against a necklace she had hidden under her tunic. It looked like a small datacard in a case that dangled from a metal chain. Assured it was still there, she gripped his arm as he lifted her to her feet. Her breathing went ragged and her shaking grew harder. "I'm going to use all the words I tell Luci not to use."

"Deep breaths." He leveraged most of her weight as they crossed the clearing. Lucinda skipped back from the blanket. He twisted Mara in his arms before lowering her to sit on it. Her shaking wasn't stopping, so he unlatched his belt and let it drop to the ground before unwrapping his sash and tabard and draping it around her back and shoulders. He crossed the front pieces over her chest and fastened the sash high around her ribs so it wouldn't put pressure on her wounds. 

Her wide green eyes stared at him, and her pale face looked so surprised by his actions. He remembered that expression back in Grakkus' cell. Was the galaxy still being so unkind to her for her to be off-balanced by his care? "Lucinda, get the other blanket."

Lucinda dashed back to Mara's survival kit and dashed back with the folded blanket. Her cleft chin wobbled as she looked at her mother. He unfurled the blanket and wrapped it around Mara before resting his left hand on Lucinda's shoulder. "It's okay."

"It's not okay! I hate this forest!" The little girl's shout left her with tears in her eyes. "It keeps trying to kill us."

He rubbed her back. "You just need to see more forests. They're not all like this one. Most of the ones I've been in don't have creatures that hunt with the Force."

"I thought you were from a desert?" She sniffled.

"Tatooine is a desert, yes, but I've been to a few different planets since then. This planet is a lot like Endor, only the trees are shorter here." She looked up at the canopy that was only twenty meters over their heads. He chuckled. "The trees on Endor are as tall as buildings on Coruscant. The Ewoks build their villages in them with bridges and ropes between the trees."

Mara opened the blanket. "I'm all right, Luci. Come here." Lucinda dove for her mother's arms.

Luke felt his smile widen. The fear had eased from Lucinda's face, and Mara looked surer of herself as she pressed a kiss on top of her daughter's head. He refastened his belt around his waist, turned to the mess left by treating Mara, and picked up the supplies, bringing the other survival kit within easy reach of the blanket. 

Mara's tunic needed a wash before anything else, and he hefted the Water JugFilter. It would be best to have both full before it was dark. He hung its strap on his shoulder and draped Mara's tunic over his right arm. "I'll go back to the last stream we crossed and fill this up."

Mara nodded, saying nothing. Artoo beeped worriedly as he rolled over to Luke.

Luke patted his dome. "I won't take long. Watch over them, please." The droid reluctantly agreed and rolled across the clearing to stop at Mara's feet. Luke gave the group a reassuring wave before stepping onto the path they had made.

The stream was only thirty meters back; without the travois, it took him only a few minutes to reach it. He hung the tattered tunic on a nearby branch before kneeling on the muddy bank and filling the water canteen. He closed it up and waited for the indicator light to show that the filter had decontaminated the water.

Maybe he should have hugged Lucinda; she had needed one after seeing her mother injured like that. No, he was a stranger to the child, and it was best to let her take the lead with how she wanted to interact with him. And he had a lot to make up for after crashing the kid.

The water canteen's light changed to green, and he poured the contents over Mara's tunic, rinsing off the mud and blood. It wasn't her favorite garment, but she needed protection from the elements. He refilled the canteen and checked over the rinse job. The worst of the grime was off, so he worked his numb right hand to take a fistful and then he wrung the water out of the tunic.

By the time he got back to their camp, Lucinda was digging through the survival kit for the worklight. Artoo whistled, happily announcing Luke's presence and well-being. The little girl looked up with a relieved grin. "You're okay!"

He spread the tunic over a branch to continue drying. "I think the vornskrs have this forest divided into territory. It takes a while before another attacks us." He gave Artoo a reassuring pat before he sat down on Mara's left.

Lucinda shook her head as she set the light out and on a low setting. "I should've gone with you to help. Your hand's hurt."

"What happened to your hand?" Mara hitched the blanket around her shoulders so she could seize his right hand. The fingers didn't respond to her pressure. "Did you injure it in the crash?"

"No." He felt his face heat under her concerned gaze. She was worried; she cared. "I took one of the power cells out to power the door release on the shed."

"It's prosthetic?!" She pulled it against her and pushed up the sleeve of his tunic until the access hatch in the synthskin was visible. She traced the line of it, and he wished there was more power to energize the synthetic nerves so he could feel her finger. "Did… did you lose it in Grakkus' arena?"

"No, it was later, much later than that."

Lucinda stood on Mara's other side so she could look down at it. "Did you lose your real hand in a crash?"

"No, a lightsaber duel. My opponent thought taking my hand was the quickest way to end it."

Mara's fingers curled around his hand. "Vader took your hand." She sounded angry about it.

"He didn't take my life."

"Did it hurt?" Lucinda asked with a gruesome relish.

"When it happened? Yes, it hurt a lot."

"Does it hurt now?"

Luke sighed. "It's numb and it won't do what I want it to do unless I manipulate the fingers into position. That's not triggering pain; it's just annoying because it doesn't usually act like that." Once the remaining power cell completely drained, he would get the aches and itches on skin and muscles that were no longer there. He hoped by that time they'd reach civilization with a medcenter.

Lucinda said nothing, but she opened a ration bar wrapper and handed it to him. Mara realized she was still stroking his unresponsive hand and released it.

"Thank you," he told Lucinda as she handed a ration bar to her mother and sat down.

"You're welcome." She bit into hers and wrinkled her nose at the taste. "I'd like to go see the Ewok village trees."

Mara shook her head. "I don't know if we can do that."

"Why not?" Luke asked. "Karrde doesn't give you vacations?"

"He does, but I've heard things about those Ewoks."

"Don't worry about that. I'm a member of the Bright Tree tribe. They'll be nice to my friends."

"You'll take us?" Lucinda grinned. "Really?"

"We have to wait until the current Imperial mess calms down, but I'll take you and your mother to Endor." He stopped himself from promising to take them anywhere in the galaxy they wanted to see.

But Lucinda plopped down next to her mother with a pleased smile.

* * *

Luke stared off into the night shadows of the forest beyond the worklight's reach. Mara's holdout blaster waited on the ground next to his hip, and his left hand rested on top of it. The Jade family slumbered on his right. This long day and Mara's close call with the vornskr had drained him, but he wasn't about to fall asleep when they were counting on his protection.

He wanted to protect them both. Well, he had wanted to protect Mara the second he had seen her nine years ago. What surprised him was how quickly Lucinda had found that same spot. Like mother, like daughter, he supposed. The last time he had dealt with children that age was Biggs' younger sisters and cousins back on Tatooine. He guessed he was doing all right, despite the rough start.

Mara twisted against him, burrowing for warmth. He wrapped his arm around her, accounting for her wounds and leaving the length of it draped against her arm. She sighed in her sleep and snuggled closer.

Luke froze as she settled on him. He had no right to touch her! Yet he wanted to so immensely, he embraced her without thinking it through. She hadn't looked for him. Keeping him safe from the Imperials was not the same as falling into bed with him again. No one forced their kriffing now. He would always let her choose. She had other priorities now, and she would not choose him.

He lifted his right arm to repositioned it off her. Mara shifted again, getting as close as she could with Lucinda's head weighing down her leg. He froze again. 

Her hand found his thigh and now he wasn't breathing along with not moving. "Don't you want to know where I am?" 

Her sleepy voice took him back years and how they had slept pressed together on the narrow cell cot. He had asked permission then to put his arms around her and had logicked it with "So I know where you are and that they haven't yanked you out of here while we sleep." She had agreed then, and now the memory of it wasn't so bad?

It didn't match with her earlier standoffishness, but they had a common enemy with this forest again. And as it often happened around this woman, he opened his mouth and the truth fell out. "I wanted to know where you were so bad; my squad started making jokes about my thing for red-haired women."

She craned her neck to look at him better, and the muffled "what?" was a little less sleepy.

He could warm her with how heated his face was growing. "Every time we were in a population center, I kept looking at red-haired women. Hoping that she might be you, free and safe. They never were, and it got noticeable after a while."

"That's flattering. I didn't think I had made that kind of impression. Or any impression at all."

"I can't describe what kind of impression you made." He resettled his arm behind her, careful not to touch her wounded back. "Why do you think different?"

"You became a Jedi." She realized her hand was on his thigh. She drew it back, and he missed the touch.

"What does that have to do with us?" 

"You took vows."

Not really. He had had more to promise when he took the Rebel Alliance's officer commission. Master Yoda and Ben, neither of them had required him saying more than his intention to be a Jedi. What he had told the Emperor _'I am a Jedi like my father before me'_ had the ring of a vow and cemented the covenant he had made with the Force, but his last blow to the Sith Lord who had held his father's chains wasn't what Mara was talking about. It slammed into his tired brain. "Wait, the celibacy thing?"

She stiffened against him. "I know how much becoming a Jedi meant to you, Luke. The last thing I want is to ruin that for you."

He sighed and lightly thunked his head on the tree bole behind them. "I will have to get with Leia's staff and plan a campaign. 'Everything You Think You Know About the Jedi Is Wrong.' That could be the title."

"But the Jedi Order?"

"Were not celibate. From what history I've found so far that survived the Purge, Jedi were getting married during the Great Sith War. I think they stopped getting married later, maybe when that blood test became standard tech, so they didn't need members of the Order reproducing to have new Force users to train. The Force is strong in families." He paused, not sure how she would take it. "The Force is strong with you."

Her huff of air was amused. "First time telling someone that?"

"Third. That bad?"

"You need more practice." Her head leaned against him again and he welcomed it. "I already knew, knew back when we met."

"You didn't say anything?"

"Grakkus was training you for a gladiatorial death match. I did not want to get thrown into that too. And I wasn't ready to join your crusade." Her right hand snaked out from under the thermal blanket wrapped around her shoulders and brushed against her daughter's hair. "You're right about the families. Luci has the Force too."

No wonder she had been so worried about the Imperials targeting children. He wanted to promise to keep her safe, keep them both safe, but his actions had put them in danger from them. He didn't say anything.

She restarted the conversation. "You found some history that survived the Purge?"

"Some. Unfortunately, the history lessons are only current up to about three hundred and forty years before the Battle of Yavin. That's when the ship that had the records crashed. What the blood test tested for wasn't in them, and they cover nothing running up to the Clone Wars." Luke sighed. "We don't have the test and I don't want to tell anyone what they can or can't do with their personal relationships and the New Republic needs more Jedi than just me, so I can't limit membership based on marriage status that the old Order could. The Jedi are going back to an older way doing things." He leaned his head against the tree bole again. "But I need to find a history tutor and make sure I'm not jumping over a Sarlacc pit when I explain it."

"You're planning on getting married? The HoloNet has been strikingly silent on that."

He swallowed. "I'm not opposed to it, but there's no one I'm serious with." He hoped she'd put her hand back on him again. "No one at all, actually."

"Well, it's a good thing they haven't missed such a newsworthy item." She teased, but she didn't put her hand back on him. "They didn't miss your sister's wedding."

"Leia's the one who brought the celibacy thing to my attention, at least how the Core remembers the Jedi. Her pre-wedding jitters came out in a sob fit out of the sand dunes how she couldn't be a Jedi with me because she needed to marry Han and how horrible it was that she was abandoning me." He chuckled. "It took longer to figure out what the problem was. It turned out all right."

"I guess she's happy with being pregnant too."

He twisted his neck, but still couldn't see her expression well to make out why there was a pensive note in her voice now. "She hated morning sickness, but her and Han want to be parents. She would probably love talking about pregnancy with you. I'm not much help when it comes to what a Force user can feel during one and what should happen throughout."

"Don't know if I'm the best person for reassuring pregnancy stories. I spent the entire time cycling through anger, fear, ineptitude, and woeful inadequacy." He felt her scowl vibrate through her body pressed against his. "I was raised to be the best at everything, but the skills I was trained in—" She shook her head and changed what she was saying with a brisk tone of voice. "Luckily, there are plenty of resources to study on how to be a good parent."

"Maybe you could recommend some titles for me." The now persistent worry rose again in his mind when his thoughts turned toward Leia's twins. Ben's voice echoed in his memories. _I thought that I could instruct him just as well as Yoda. I was wrong._ Responsibility bore down on him, trying its best to flatten him to the ground.

"Why do you want that?" Her low voice asked sharply. "They're your sister's children."

"And I will have to train them some day."

"You're worried about when to start and want clues from human childhood development?"

He shook his head. "I'm worried about being able to do it at all."

She shrugged, her shoulder rubbing against his side. "What's to do? You teach them how to hear minds and move objects and use lightsabers. You did that with your sister, didn't you?"

"Yes," he agreed. "But that was when I thought that was all there was to it. It's just the beginning. They're going to be strong in the Force, and with that strength comes responsibility. How do I teach them that? How do I teach them wisdom and compassion and how not to abuse their power?"

She sighed, and he felt her body move with it. "How does anyone teach anyone else that stuff? Mostly by example, I suppose."

He thought about it and nodded reluctantly. "I suppose so."

She twisted her upper body more and Luke stifled his impulse to tell her to be careful of her back. She pressed her cheek against his chest. "You're not the only influence on these children-to-be. But you are the kindest person I have ever known, Luke. They will learn that from you. Now put your arm around me again. I'm cold and you can't be comfortable."

"I don't want to hurt you." He blurted, ignoring the uncomfortable twist in his right arm. At least his hand and part of his forearm was completely numb.

"You never have." She adjusted the thermal blanket over her shoulders before resting her right arm across his lap. "Even under orders, you made my pleasure a priority. You were the first partner ever to do that."

He draped his arm over her shoulders again, careful not to pull her braided hair and of her wounds. She didn't shrug it off. Being a considerate lover hadn't enticed her to stay with him. "How did you get out?"

"Hmm? From Grakkus' palace? All the guards left to watch your fight and it turns out I could pick the cell door lock." She relaxed against him. "The 501st were inside already and trying to converge on the arena, so I went to Grakkus' collection room. That's where he had parked your X-wing and astromech."

Luke looked over her head to Artoo, who had never said anything about seeing Mara in the collection room. Artoo made a soft blat and then whistled, {You never asked how the journals ended up in the cockpit.}

"Is that the same droid?" Mara asked. "It's confirming my story?"

"Same droid, yes. And I didn't ask him about his confinement, which I should have."

"I remembered you wanting the journals of your old Master, so I put them in the cockpit and told your droid Vader was coming to destroy the stuff. I grabbed the artifact my former Master wanted and took the Delta-7B _Aethersprite_ out of there."

{Don't think I didn't offer her a ride,} Artoo beeped. {Not my fault she didn't read the translation screen.}

He thought back to what he could remember of that storage room and the ship covered with a tarp. "It didn't have the hyperdrive ring."

"No, but it got me to the other side of Nar Shaddaa and I bartered passage off planet with it." She flexed her hand resting near his hip. "I only had to punch one calyarnr for them to all know that my body was off limits. And I told them they should junk it because Vader would send somebody looking for it."

"And you took the other artifact with you?"

"One of the holocrons. I traded it to the Gungans on Naboo for safe passage for me and Luci. They haven't given it to you?"

"No, but I haven't had any dealings with Naboo yet," he said. Mara yawned instead of answering. "Go back to sleep. You need the rest." She didn't respond as her breathing slowed, and he went back to watching the shadows surrounding them.


	7. Chapter Seven

  
  


Since Luke insisted on repairing her tunic with flex tape before they set off and double checking her bandages despite how much Mara told him she felt fine, the third day since they crashed started off slowly. The bacta salve was working, and they had nothing stronger in the medpacs. Their best plan was to get out of the forest as fast as possible. Still, she was more comfortable back in her tunic, instead of trying to fashion a new one out of the thermal blanket, and Luke's tabard wrapped around her hid the patched holes. Lucinda had kept staring at them.

Her hands kept finding the rough woven fabric of the tabard as they walked, rubbing it between her fingers whenever she let her thoughts drift back to Luke. He hadn't forgotten about her in his quest to become a Jedi. His mentors hadn't demanded a return of the old Jedi structure in exchange for teaching Luke. He had missed her; he had looked for her while his destiny was pushing him in other directions. It was gratifying to hear that the pleasure had been mutual and memorable. 

It all gave her hope that she and Lucinda wouldn't disrupt his life too severely. Because they were a disruption, but she'd rather have Luke on their side against the public, New Republic government, and his family when the truth was out. She didn't want to hurt either of them with the truth.

They had made good time despite how tired Luke must be, and she figured if they kept this rate up, they would reach Hyllyard City by the afternoon. Provided nothing hindered their progress.

A distinct noise wafted occasionally through the forest around local noon, a whining drone that sounded mechanical, but Mara couldn't identify it. But there was more than one. They continued walking for another hour before Luke heard enough to identify them.

Speeder bikes. And Karrde did not have any speeders bikes here at Myrkr.

"You're sure that's a military model?" Mara muttered as the whine/drone rose and fell twice more before fading again into the distance. They were so close to the end of the forest, about two more hours of hiking, and they'd be out and looking at Hyllyard City.

"I'm sure," he said. "I nearly ran one of them into a tree on Endor."

"Why did you do that?" Lucinda asked.

"I was chasing after an Imperial scout to keep him from reporting us to their base and our steering vanes got stuck together. I had to jump off."

Mara ignored them as she turned to the south and listened.

"So, he got back to the base?"

"No, he turned around to shoot me down. I chopped off his steering vanes, and he spiraled into a tree. It was quick death." He pressed a finger to his lips in the universal sign for silence.

Luci clamped her lips together.

The distant speeder bikes moved again. "Sounds like they're off to the south too." She turned to the north. "North… I don't hear anything from that direction."

"Neither do I," Luke said after he listened. "I wonder… Artoo, can you make up an audio map for us?"

There was an acknowledging beep from the droid tied to the travois leaning against a tree bole. A moment later, the droid rotated the holoprojector to aim at the ground and a two-color map appeared, hovering a few centimeters over the matted leaves underfoot.

"I was right." Mara pointed to the dots in the stylized landscape of the map. "A few units ahead of us, the rest to the south. Nothing at all north."

"Last night, you wanted to go north." Luke looked up from the map. "You want to take the obvious trap now?"

"Trap?" Lucinda bent closer to the map. "But Artoo hears nothing there?"

"Just because we can't hear them doesn't mean they aren't there." Mara squatted next to the map, intent on giving Lucinda a lesson while she was receptive to it. "It's the oldest tactical trick in the book. If the perimeter looks impossible to crack, the quarry goes to ground and waits for a better opportunity. You don't want him to do that, so you give him what looks like a feasible way through." She ran a finger through the _quiet_ section on the map. "Here, they get a bonus. If we swing north to avoid the obvious speeder bikes, it's instant proof that we've got something to hide from them."

Luke grimaced. "Not that they really need any proof."

Mara shrugged and stood up again. "Some officers are more legal-minded than others."

"Can we sneak around those two?" Lucinda poked at the glowing dots representing speeder bikes between them and the edge of the forest.

"They're going to ring us," Luke said. "Move units around to the north and south, and eventually behind us."

"If they haven't done so already," Mara said. "No reason we would have heard them. They don't know how fast we're moving, so they'll have made it a big circle. Probably using a wide ring of Chariot assault vehicles or hoverscouts with a group of speeder bikes working around each focal point. It's the standard stormtrooper format for a web."

Luke gazed at her with a thoughtful expression. "You've made a study of Imperial tactics." 

Her breath caught in her throat as she teetered, waiting for his denouncement of what Palpatine had raised her to become, what she had gleefully achieved and dedicated herself to until Palpatine had cast her out. And stumbled upon a better path after meeting Luke, but who knew if he'd see it that way.

"So how do we break out?" he asked.

Mara hissed between her teeth as her lungs worked again. "We don't. Not without a lot more equipment and resources than we have."

The faint whine/drone came again from somewhere ahead of them, rising and then fading as it passed by in the distance.

"The circle's not there yet." Lucinda pointed at the second weakest spot on the map, the speeder bikes between them and the edge of the forest. "Let's make them crash and run for it!"

"Can your droid jam their comms?" Mara asked.

Luke shook his head. "Not with the broadcasting equipment we have. We might as well head straight into their arms. And bluff for the sabacc pot." He only raised his eyebrows when she scowled. "You have a better idea?"

She sighed the scowl away. "Not really. I suppose you want to do the role-switch thing Karrde suggested."

"He's probably already seeded the idea with the Imperials, so let's go with it."

"Point." Mara unstrapped the forearm holster from her arm.

Lucinda stood up and wiped her hands on her trousers. "Who should I be? The brat, crying baby, lost pilot, or teharaor ta'hetke?"

Luke held out his left arm for Mara to strap the holster onto it for him and looked at Luci in confusion. Mara decided. "Crying baby, if they try asking you questions, all you do is cry and cling to whoever has hold of you." She cinched the strap around Luke's broader forearm. "You should carry her; that'll help."

"Stay with you and Jedi Skywalker and don't let them separate us?" Lucinda stomped her feet. "I can do that, Mommy."

"I know."

Luke tested releasing and catching the blaster in his working hand with a frown. "I hope they won't expect a demonstration of that." He stopped messing with the holster as he approached the droid on the travois. "Artoo?"

The droid turned off the map projection and one of the trapezoidal sections at the top of his upper dome slid open to reveal a deep storage compartment beneath it. Lucinda approached to watch Luke drop the lightsaber in. "What's that?"

"It used to be Artoo's flare launcher. We found a better use for it. I'll call for it if I need it," he told the droid.

"Don't count on being very good with it," Mara warned. He had been careful with it, considering his deteriorating hand and lack of the Force. "The ysalamiri effect extends several kilometers past the edge of the forest. No warnings from the Force anywhere near Hyllyard City."

"I understand," Luke nodded. "I guess we're ready to go then."

"Not quite," Mara said. Two days' worth of stubble and the grime of hiking did not make a disguise. "There's still that face of yours."

Luke cocked an eyebrow. "I don't think Artoo's got anywhere to hide that."

"Funny. I had something else in mind." She glanced around, finding the bush she wanted in a stand a few meters away. Getting those tests done on the native plants to find out which were edible had a bonus benefit of everyone on base learning to avoid this one. Reaching it, she pulled the end of her tunic sleeve down to cover her hand and picked a few of the leaves. "Pull up your sleeve and hold out your arm," she ordered as she returned with them.

He uncovered his right arm, getting the sleeve past his elbow. Luci's eyes widened. "Isn't that—?"

"Yes, so you stay away from those bushes." Mara brushed his forearm above the metal band that marked where his prosthetic attached with the tip of one leaf. "Now. Let's see if this works."

"What is it supposed to—aah!" The last of Luke's air came out in an explosive burst. The skin on his arm turned dark and puffy, sprinkled with tiny pustules.

"Perfect," Mara said. "You're allergic as anything to them." He gritted his teeth harder. "Oh relax," she told him, "the pain will stop in a few seconds."

"Oh, thanks," Luke gritted back. He took a deep breath. "Right. Now, what about this—mmm!—this blasted itch?"

"That'll hang on a little longer." She gestured at his arm. "But never mind that. What do you think?"

He looked down at it. "Looks disgusting."

"Sure does. You want to do it yourself, or you want me to do it for you?"

He gritted his teeth again before saying, "I can do it."

And he did, carefully but quickly. "I hope I didn't get it too close to my eyes." He said between clenched teeth as he threw the used leaves into the forest. Both his hands curled into fists. "It'd be handy to see the rest of the afternoon."

"I think you'll be all right." Mara studied the result. The ring of puffiness started at his eye sockets. "The rest of your face is horrendous, though. You won't look like whatever images they have, that's for sure."

"Glad to hear it." He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He reopened them with a sigh. "How long will I look like this?"

"The puffiness should start going down in a few hours. It won't be completely gone until tomorrow."

"Good enough. We ready, then?"

"As ready as we'll ever be." She turned back to the droid, sliding the travois handles off the tree, and started walking to get the travois clear. She paused and watched Lucinda climb back on Luke's back. "Let's go."

They made good time. Mara was grateful for how Luke made her prop her leg up for the first two nights, otherwise her ankle would slow them down now. The whine/drone of the speeder bikes rose and fell in the distance ahead of them, when suddenly they were there.

Two biker scouts in the gleaming white armor that covered less of the black body glove than normal stormtrooper armor swooped up to them and braked to a halt almost before her ears had registered the sound of their approach. Which meant a quick ride, with target position already known.

"Halt!" one scout called unnecessarily as they hovered there, both swivel blaster cannons trained and ready. "Identify yourselves, in the name of the Empire."

Mara hoped the Rebel Alliance had given Luke some acting lessons to temper his earnest forthrightness.

"Boy, am I glad you showed up." Luke's voice quivered with relief. "You don't happen to have some transport handy, do you? We're about walked off our feet."

Mara glared over her shoulder at him, flinging all the scorn she had ever had over everything at him. "Does it look like they have transportation for us? Or do you think they're going to hand one of those speeder bikes to you? Cause you are not putting my daughter on anything that dangerous."

"Dangerous? You want to talk about dangerous? You crashed with her!" Luke ignored the scouts and focused on Mara's angry face.

"Because you're that bad of a pilot! Right on my thrusters trying to force us down." She released one of the travois' handles to gesture and then grabbed it again as it rocked.

"Of course, I was trying to force you down, you stole from Karrde and me! Taking our kid after everything I've done to provide for you both." 

Lucinda made a wordless whine and hid her face behind Luke's neck. 

He sounded hurt by the scenario that was so close to the truth of the matter. Would he yell like that once he knew? Mara took a deep breath to yell about how lousy his provision had been, but the scout took the chance to interrupt. "Identify yourself."

Luke looked at the pair of them. "My name's Jade. I work for Karrde and I got his item back." He leaned to keep Lucinda on his back and waved at the droid on the travois. He straightened back up. "I don't suppose he sent some transport, did he? My wife is sorry she took it."

"Not as sorry as you'll be for keeping me on this forsaken planet! Wonderful opportunities, go lick a Hutt."

"Working for Karrde—"

The scouts looked at each other, then at the family in front of them, and then back at each other. 

"And you dragged our daughter here with no decent schools and no other children!"

"You'll come with us," the scout ordered before Luke could come up with something to yell in defense of settling his family here. "Our officer wants to talk to you. You—woman—put the droid down and move away from it."

Mara rolled her eyes but complied with dramatic heaving. "I can't believe you took a bounty for your own family."

"I did not take a bounty on you!" Luke snapped back as the second scout maneuvered his speeder bike to a position in front of Artoo's travois. "But I expect Karrde to pay a recovery fee for the droid. You guys are my witnesses that I had it back before you showed up. Karrde weasels out of these fees too often; he's not going to weasel out of this one."

"You're a bounty hunter?" the scout asked, an obvious note of disdain in his voice.

"That's right," Luke said with professional dignity in his voice. "It's honest work, takes care of my family."

It was surreal to hear such a blatant lie coming from the same lips that had yelled the truth at their guards until one of them slugged Luke for it. Mara decided to help him out before the scout asked about what collections Luke had done for Karrde. "No talking about business in front of Luci!"

Luke rolled his eyes behind the puffy swelling of his cheeks. "It's perfectly all right for you to steal her and the droid right in front of her, but I can't talk about what I do."

"I didn't steal her. We were going to see Mother."

"Without telling me!"

The second scout had dismounted and fastened the handles of the travois to the rear of his speeder bike. Remounting, he headed off at about the speed of a brisk walk. "You follow him," the first scout ordered, swinging around to take up the rear. "Drop your blaster on the ground first, Jade."

Luke complied, and they set off. The first scout put down just long enough to scoop up the abandoned blaster and then followed. Mara kept up her aura of fury. Supposedly fury directed at her hapless husband, but in reality aimed at Thrawn as more military might joined the party. More speeder bikes swept in from both sides, falling into close formation on either side of Luke and Mara or else joining up with the guards to both front and rear. As they neared the forest's edge, fully armored stormtroopers appeared too, moving in with blaster rifles held ready across their chest to take up positions around the three prisoners. As they did so, the scouts began drifting away, ranging farther out to form a kind of moving screen.

The red-eyed bishwag could have just stayed in Wild Space, and they wouldn't be dealing with this mess now. She wouldn't have to watch her daughter grow more rigid with fear and not be able to comfort her. Luke was trying as he let go of Lucinda's leg to pat her arm. But he didn't know why she was so afraid.

About an hour later, when they stepped out from under the forest canopy, their escort numbered ten biker scouts and twenty stormtroopers. Paranoid, red-eyed bishwag, Mara added in her mind because she refused to believe that Talon Karrde gave the game away that amateurishly back at the base. All of this was unnecessary for one man, even if he was a Jedi.

Three more people were waiting for them in the fifty-meter strip of open land and the nearest structure of Hyllyard City: two more stormtroopers and a hard-faced man wearing a major's insignia on his dusty brown Imperial uniform. "About time," the latter muttered loud enough to hear as the stormtroopers nudged Mara and Luke carrying Lucinda in his direction. "Who are they?"

"The male says his name is Jade," a stormtrooper in front reported in that filtered voice they all seemed to have. "Bounty hunter; works for Karrde. He claims the females are his wife and child."

"His wife." The major looked at Mara. "Karrde said a thief was being pursued. Mentioned nothing about it being a family affair. Or perhaps the child stole the merchandise." He leaned into Lucinda's face. Mara curled her fists to not yank him away from her daughter. "What is your name?"

Lucinda screwed her face up and tears welled up in her eyes. "Luci Jade" came out in sobs and she shoved her face against Luke's neck and shoulder. The sobs continued.

"Back off, you scared her," Luke told the major. He jostled a bit to bounce her. "Ah now, calm down, Luci. Daddy will get you a pittin if you're a good girl."

Lucinda didn't say anything but sniffled as loudly and long as she could.

"All you do is spoil her!" Mara crossed her arms over her chest. She hadn't expected it to hurt so much to hear Luke use that word.

The major turned to Mara. "What's your name?"

"Senni Kiffu," Mara said, her voice surly.

"Senni Jade," Luke corrected and sounded so heartbroken.

Mara jerked around to glare at him. "I'm going back to Mother! And I'm taking Luci with me!"

Lucinda whined like another sob was about to start any second now.

"And taking merchandise from your husband-to-be-not's employer?" The major looked at her and then at Artoo—still tied to his travois and dragged behind the speeder bike.

"I'm not a thief. I didn't know it was in the Skipray when I borrowed it."

The major ignored that as he focused on the scout. "Get the droid off your bike. The ground's flat enough here, and I want you on the perimeter. Put it with the prisoners. Cuff them, too—they're hardly likely to fall over tree roots out here."

"Wait a minute," Luke objected as a stormtrooper stepped toward him and Lucinda. "You're not cuffing us."

The major raised his eyebrows. "You got a problem with that, bounty hunter?" he asked, his voice challenging.

"Yeah, I got a problem with it," Luke shot back. "This is just a big misunderstanding. Call Karrde so he can pick us up and get his droid back, and me and Senni can talk things out."

"You both will have ample time to work out your differences while in our custody. So wait until you're in a detention cell to begin. Put your daughter down. She can walk the rest of the way." 

Luke grimaced, but let Lucinda slide off his back. She cringed against his side.

The major frowned at Luke's face. "What in the Empire happened to you, anyway?"

Mara froze inside. This is the place to trip up inexperienced liars in their cover stories.

"Ran into some kind of bush in there." Luke jerked his head back at the forest while a stormtrooper cuffed his hands in front of him. "It itched like blazes for a while."

The major smiled thinly. "How very inconvenient for you. How fortunate that we have a qualified medic back at HQ. He should be able to bring that swelling down in no time."

The stormtrooper approached Lucinda with a set of restraints, who stared up at him, and wrapped her arms around Luke's hips. Her grip was unyielding enough to transfer her tremors to the man.

Luke glared at the stormtrooper and the major. "Can you stop scaring my kid? What can she do to all of you?"

The major held Luke's gaze a moment longer before waving the stormtrooper away from Lucinda. That stormtrooper moved away, and Mara wished she could have told Luke well done. She and Lucinda had practiced restraint lock picking, if the Imperial attention ever left them. 

The major shifted his attention to the stormtrooper leader. "You disarmed him."

The stormtrooper gestured, and the first of the biker scouts swooped close to hand Mara's blaster to the major. "Interesting weapon," the major murmured, turning it over in his hands before sliding it into his belt. From overhead came a soft hum, and Mara glanced up to see a Chariot LAV settle into place. "Ah," the major said, glancing up at it. "All right, Commander. Let's go."


	8. Chapter Eight

  
  


Mommy had brought Lucinda once to Hyllyard City when they first moved to Myrkr. Hyllyard City had its small houses and commercial buildings crammed together with narrow streets running between them. They had stashed travel supplies, and Mommy had made sure Lucinda could withdraw credits from the local bank if they got separated. They had flown here in an airspeeder. 

Now, they were nowhere close to those places. Lucinda tried to keep her heart from pounding by breathing hard. The stormtroopers surrounded them. Mommy always said to never get caught by stormtroopers. They couldn't fight because Mommy and Jedi Skywalker both wore restraints around their wrists. And the black lenses were always watching them.

The stormtroopers herded them around the perimeter of the town, aiming for one of the wider avenues that radiated from the town square in the center of town. Lucinda saw glimpses of the open area between the buildings as they walked. She was glad Jedi Skywalker carried her for so long in the forest; otherwise, she'd be too tired to keep up with all the adults. She stayed next to his legs. She was sure she could jump on his back if they needed to run.

The leading stormtroopers had just reached the target street when, in perfect coordination, the stormtroopers changed formation. Those in the inner circle pulled in closer to Mommy, Jedi Skywalker, and Lucinda while those in the outer circle moved farther away, the entire crowd coming to a halt and gesturing to their prisoners to do the same. Lucinda's skin prickled at the silent display. How could they do that without saying a word? Maybe their helmets had comms only for each other?

She looked up at Mommy, who stared at the Imperials with narrowed eyes. Lucinda made sure she was between her adults and touched Mommy's leg. Mommy glanced down and offered her most reassuring smile. It would be a lot more reassuring if Mommy had a blaster in her hands right now.

Lucinda tried to smile back to show she wasn't scared, but it felt more like a grimace. But something was happening in the street ahead. Four scruffy-looking men hustled around the corner leading a fifth man in the center of their square straight to the Imperial mass. The fifth man's hands were restrained behind his back. The new group had barely emerged from the street when four stormtroopers intercepted them. A short and inaudible conversation ensued, which concluded with the civilians handing their blasters over to the stormtroopers with obvious reluctance. 

Escorted now by the Imperials, they continued toward everyone else. Lucinda's eyes opened wide, and she glanced up at Mommy. Mommy looked confused at Chin, Thatch, Gyyll, and Dralin marching a stranger as their prisoner to the Imperials. So, Lucinda looked back at the group with her forehead creased in confusion too.

The stranger didn't work for Karrde, but he looked familiar. He hadn't bothered to shave, but he didn't have a full beard yet.

The stormtroopers opened their ranks to let the newcomers through. "What do you want?" The major demanded as they stopped in front of him.

"Name's Chin." He kept his gaze locked on the major's face. "We caught this ratch snooping around the forest—maybe looking for your prisoners there. Figured you might want to talk with him, hee?"

"Uncommonly generous of you." The major said sarcastically while he looked the stranger over in a quick glance. "You come to this conclusion all by yourself?"

Chin drew himself up against that sarcasm. "Just because I don't live in a big flashy city doesn't mean I'm stupid. What hai—you think we don't know what it means when Imperial stormtroopers set up a temporary garrison?"

"You'd best just hope that the garrison is temporary." The major glanced at the stormtrooper beside him and jerked his head toward the new prisoner. "Check him for weapons."

"We already—" Chin stopped when the major looked at him.

The frisking took only a minute and came up empty. "Put him in the pocket with the others," the major ordered. "All right, Chin, you and your friends can go. If he turns out to be worth anything, I'll see you get a piece."

"Uncommonly generous of you," Chin repeated with an expression just short of a sneer. "Can we have our blasters back now?"

The major's expression hardened. "You can pick them up later at our headquarters. Hyllyard Hotel, straight across the square—but I'm sure a sophisticated citizen like yourself already knows where it is."

Chin glared at the major for a moment, but glanced at the stormtroopers clustered around. Without a word he turned, and he and his three companions strode back toward the city.

Lucinda swallowed hard and looked up at Mommy. Why was Chin and the others leaving them with the Imperials? Mommy stared after them.

"Move out," the major ordered, and they started up again. Lucinda jogged to stay beside Jedi Skywalker.

The stranger fell into step on Jedi Skywalker's other side. "Well," he muttered. "Together again, huh?"

Jedi Skywalker smiled as best he could with his puffy and blistered face. "Wouldn't miss it," he muttered back.

Oh, that was a call sign! Mommy and Lucinda had used those before. The stranger was from the New Republic, but that didn't explain what Chin and the others were doing.

"Your friends there seem in a hurry to get away." Jedi Skywalker commented in the same low voice. The stormtroopers didn't appear to be listening in as the group walked.

"Probably don't want to miss the party," the stranger told him. "A little something they threw together to celebrate my capture."

Lucinda stared ahead and tried to puzzle that one out. It sounded like the worst reason to have a party.

"Shame we weren't invited." Jedi Skywalker didn't sound sorry, not like he had back in the forest. He sounded suspicious. Lucinda looked up at him, but he was looking at the taller stranger.

"Real shame," the stranger agreed with a face that didn't match how amused his low voice sounded. "You never know, though."

Their entire group had turned onto the avenue now, moving toward the center of town. She could see something gray and rounded ahead of them over the stormtroopers' heads. Oh, the archway; people had told her and Mommy to go see it when they had come to the city before. They hadn't had the time then.

Were Jedi Skywalker and the New Republic stranger talking in more code? Lucinda scowled before remembering she needed to look sad and scared. Jedi Skywalker should have taught her and Mommy code while they were in the forest. She looked up at him, but his gaze flickered from the archway to the stormtroopers.

She looked back at the archway. The people of Hyllyard City had been proud of it, and other places she and Mommy had lived had had nothing like it she remembered. Its upper part was composed of different types of fitted stone and flared outward like a mushroom top. The lower part curved in and downward, to end in a pair of meter-square supporting pillars on each side. It rose a good ten meters into the sky with about five meters between the pillars. The town square was empty ground about fifteen meters between the arch and the buildings.

She couldn't see what was so special about that arch, so she looked at the stormtroopers. The ones in the lead marched out of the narrow avenue and each lifted his blaster rifle a little higher and shifted away from the others. Something was wrong and her stomach clenched around that.

"Is Threepio here?" Jedi Skywalker asked the New Republic stranger in a more urgent mutter.

Lucinda looked up and saw the stranger frown. "He's with Lando, yeah."

Jedi Skywalker nodded and looked back over his right shoulder. Then he shifted away from Lucinda and behind the stranger. And the next thing Lucinda knew, Artoo squealed as he fell flat with a crash.

Jedi Skywalker crouched down beside him and struggled with his manacled hands to lift the droid. Lucinda darted back to help. He only had one working hand, even if they didn't want the Imperials to know about it.

Artoo let out a loud warble right in the human man's ear by how he winced. Luci felt it ringing in her ears and she hadn't been that close. She shook her head and reached out to help lift the droid.

A hand closed around her arm and jerked her to the side. It squeezed so hard she didn't have to pretend tears as she cried out. Stormtroopers were picking up Artoo and Jedi Skywalker as the major jerked her between him and Jedi Skywalker.

The major scowled, and Jedi Skywalker matched it. He lifted his bound arms and dropped the circle of them over Lucinda's head, pulling her back to him. The major let her arm go and demanded. "What was that?"

"He fell over," Jedi Skywalker told him. "I think he tripped—"

"I meant that transmission," the major cut him off. "What did he say?"

"He was probably telling me off for tripping him," Jedi Skywalker shot back. "How should _I_ know what he said?"

The major glared at him. Lucinda glanced at Mommy. Her face was white with fury. When she looked like that, somebody got hit. The major deserved it, but Mommy was wearing the restraints. She wouldn't be able to hit the major as hard as he deserved.

The major turned to the stormtrooper at his side. "Move out, Commander. Stay alert." He turned and headed back to the front of the group.

"You okay, Luci?" Jedi Skywalker lifted his arms from around her. She nodded at him, glanced over at Mommy, and kept nodding. 

Mommy dropped her chin once to acknowledge that information before turning and walking behind the stormtroopers.

The New Republic stranger aligned with Jedi Skywalker and Lucinda again. "I hope," he murmured, "you know what you're doing."

Jedi Skywalker took a deep breath as his gaze went straight ahead again. "So do I," he murmured back.

Lucinda followed his gaze. It was back on the arch. If they ever got away from the stormtroopers, she was going to ask what was so special about it. The stormtroopers were taking them straight to it. Jedi Skywalker kept staring at it. She didn't want to give the plan away, if there was a plan, and her stomach would feel a lot better if Jedi Skywalker and his friend sounded surer of themselves.

Nothing happened as they crossed the empty plaza. The stormtroopers in the lead passed under the arch and the major was only a few steps away from it when four of the stormtroopers surrounding their group blew up.

Yellow-white fire lit up the landscape, hurting her eyes with how bright it was. The multiple detonations made a thunderclap that knocked her to her knees. She screamed and covered her ears, but she still heard blaster fire ignite behind them.

Strong arms scooped her up against his chest—cloth-covered, not armored. Lucinda grabbed hold of Jedi Skywalker, and now the sounds of the battle battered her ears: the blaster fire from behind them and from the stormtroopers hugging the stone pillars, speeder bikes whined louder around them. Stormtroopers grabbed Jedi Skywalker under his arms. She glanced up and saw the Chariot assault vehicle turning around to face the unseen attackers.

The stormtroopers dumped them in the narrow gap between the two pillars holding up the north side of the arch. Mommy was already there, and she surged up to keep Lucinda and Jedi Skywalker from landing on the ground. Lucinda grabbed onto her mother as the woman pulled back. Two more stormtroopers tossed the New Republic stranger into the space with them. Four of them stood over them, using the pillars for cover as they returned fire. Lucinda looked back over the town square.

Artoo was still out there! Red blaster bolts flew past his barrel-shaped body as he rolled toward the arch as fast as his little wheels could carry him.

"I think we're in trouble," the New Republic stranger said under the sounds of all the blasters. "Not to mention Lando and the others."

"It's not over yet." Jedi Skywalker knelt on the stone ground, looking at the battle. "Just stick close. How are you at causing distractions?"

"Terrific," the stranger answered. He brought his hands out from behind his back, the chain and manacles he had been wearing now hung loose from his left wrist. "Trick cuffs," he grunted. He pulled a strip of metal from the open cuff and used that to poke at Jedi Skywalker's restraints. "I hope this thing—ah."

Lucinda spun in Mommy's lap and pressed the buttons like they had practiced. The restraints eased open around Mommy's wrists.

"Good job." Mommy kissed her forehead as she also wormed out from under Lucinda's weight.

"You ready for your distraction?" The stranger took the loose end of his chain in his free hand.

"Hang on a minute." Jedi Skywalker looked up. Lucinda craned her neck back. Most of the speeder bikes had flown under the arch and hovered close to the top stone. Their laser cannons spat fire toward the surrounding houses. In front of them and below their line of fire, the Chariot had turned parallel to the arch and was coming down.

Mommy crawled forward and grabbed Jedi Skywalker's arm. He turned his head to her. "Whatever you're going to do, _do_ it!" Mommy hissed. "If that Chariot gets down, you'll never get them out from cover."

He nodded. "I know. I'm counting on it."

The Chariot settled to the ground in front of the arch. Jedi Skywalker moved his feet under him. "All right, Han. Go."

The stranger named Han nodded and surged to his feet. He came up in the middle of the four stormtroopers standing over them. He bellowed and swung his shackles across the faceplate of the nearest guard, then threw the looped chain around the neck of the next stormtrooper and pulled away from the pillars.

The other two stormtroopers leaped on him and took the entire group down in a tangle. Lucinda scooted back on her butt so they didn't land on her.

Jedi Skywalker stood up and leaned around the pillar, looking at the droid hurrying across the empty square. He held out his left hand. "Artoo!— _now_!"

The silver metal of his lightsaber hilt reflected sunlight as it dropped into his outstretched hand.

The sound of the battle fell away as Lucinda's mouth dropped. She had seen him catch the lightsaber like that before. The green lightsaber blade extended out with a snap-hiss.

The stormtrooper guards had subdued Han's crazy attack and were getting back on their feet. Jedi Skywalker took them all down with a single sweep of the blazing green lightsaber. "Get behind me," he snapped and stepped into the gap between the northern pillars.

It had been one of her too-real dreams. The kind that Lucinda hadn't had since Mommy and she had moved to Myrkr. A blue, cloudless sky had had two suns beating down on a sea of yellow sand. The man in black stood on a skinny platform instead of the skiff and addressed a larger repulsorlift vehicle that she had never seen before. 

But Artoo had been on the top of that vehicle, and he had fired the lightsaber. So, the man in black who dropped off the end of the platform above the hole filled with teeth and tentacles only to grab it and flipped back into the skiff and caught the lightsaber once he landed there must be Jedi Skywalker.

The stormtroopers between Jedi Skywalker and the southern pillars realized something had changed and turned to face the Jedi, aiming their blasters at him.

Jedi Skywalker ignored them as he turned and slashed his lightsaber up and across. Cleaving one of the northern stone pillars in half.

There was a loud crack, and the whole arch shivered. His next stroke cut through the second pillar on this side. Stone on stone grinding noises drowned out the blasters as the two pillars began sliding apart.

Mommy grabbed her as she scrambled away from the arch. Han grabbed them both and pushed them along. Lucinda ran as best she could, hunched over and staring back at the arch. The stormtroopers and the major were all staring up at the stone. The major's eyes and mouth widened in horror.

Jedi Skywalker did something to his lightsaber's hilt and hurled it at the southern pillars. The green blade stayed lit and sliced through one pillar and nicked the other. Jedi Skywalker dived out as the stones' grinding shifted to a loud roar.

Mommy and Han both rolled onto their backs to stare at the stones crashing down on top of the Imperials. Lucinda scrambled onto her feet. She saw Artoo had come to a stop well away from the mass of stones and the crumpled nose of the Chariot assault vehicle.

Jedi Skywalker stood up and retrieved his lightsaber from the edge of the mess. He turned it off and hung it on his belt before walking toward them.

"That was effective." Han stood up and dusted his trousers. "I'm going to find Lando." He looked over Jedi Skywalker, making sure he was okay before he skirted around the former archway, heading to the buildings that saw both sides of the square—the street where they came into the town square and the arch.

Mommy sat on the ground until Jedi Skywalker reached them. She had a satisfied smile on her face now. "And here I was thinking this was all over kill for just one man." She accepted his hand and his help up off the ground. They stood there looking at each other and didn't let go of their hands while airspeeders came over the buildings to land in the town square.

Lucinda huffed and hugged Mommy from the side since they weren't looking at her. The tabard and Mommy's tunic were both sticky under her hand. "Mommy! You're bleeding again!"

That broke the adults apart. Jedi Skywalker twisted around to examine Mommy's back for himself. Mommy huffed. "They came open, but it's not so bad."

"Does Hyllyard City have a medcenter?" Jedi Skywalker lifted the hem of Mommy's tunic and the black tabard to see the bottom bandages for himself. "Otherwise, we need to see what supplies your coworkers left in the Imperial garrison."

"Why do you think they'd steal them?" Lucinda asked.

"Mara, Skywalker." Captain Karrde climbed out of the nearest airspeeder. Aves jogged across the town square towards their group.

Jedi Skywalker let go of Mommy's tunic and turned to face Captain Karrde. "Mara got injured by a vornskr."

"I'm fine," Mommy insisted.

"You're bleeding," Lucinda told her. She folded her arms over her chest. Bleeding was not fine; that was Mommy's own rule.

"Well, let's keep you fine," Captain Karrde said. He gestured back at the airspeeder he had arrived in. "Dankin can take you and Lucinda back to the base first."

"I'm going to find Han and Lando." Jedi Skywalker backed away from the group.

Mommy huffed, but only said, "Come on, Lucinda," and she herded Lucinda to the airspeeder. Lucinda went along so Mommy would have her back fixed sooner, but she glanced back at Jedi Skywalker petting Artoo and heading toward the building Aves had left.


	9. Chapter Nine

  
  


The forest that took so long to cross on foot was taking no time to fly over in the airspeeder. Lucinda stared out of the viewport at the trees that blurred into one green mass below. 

"Did Skywalker survive?" Dankin asked over his shoulder from the pilot's seat.

"Do you think I murdered him out in the forest?" Mommy shot back.

"None of us, Jade, but Solo was sure worried about it. Insisted on being right in the middle of the Boss' plan."

Lucinda twisted in her seat away from the viewport to face the adults as the names clicked together. "Han Solo? That was General Han Solo?"

"It wasn't a good time for introductions, but yes, that was Captain Han Solo. He resigned his commission about the same time he got married," Mommy explained.

"Oh." And he had come to Myrkr to bring Jedi Skywalker back home to the New Republic. He couldn't go! She hadn't gotten a chance to ask her questions yet!

The airspeeder landed in front of the barracks building. "Go shower," Mommy ordered as they got out.

Lucinda frowned. "You need medical."

"I am going—under my own power—to medical. You need to get clean." Mommy pointed to the barracks.

Lucinda huffed as she headed to the barracks door. She wanted to be clean, but she wanted Mommy to not be bleeding and she wanted to not miss Jedi Skywalker before he left. She turned at the door and saw Mommy heading across the lawn to the main building. Behind the maintenance hangar, people were setting up towing cables between an X-Wing and a Corellian Engineering Corporation YT-1300 light freighter. Since she had to move fast now, she ran down the hall to her quarters, undoing her braids as she moved.

She scrubbed everywhere with cleanser—because there was no point fighting with Mommy about what clean means—but she didn't stay in the dryer cycle long. She wrung her red-gold hair with her hands until her body was dry enough, then jumped out. She pulled on a clean jumpsuit and her spare boots before she ran back up the barracks hallway and paused at the door outside.

More airspeeders were bringing people back to the base. Everyone shooting at the Imperials in Hyllyard City must work for Captain Karrde. The entire base converged on the maintenance hangar and the ships docked around it. Captain Solo directed the people with the towing cables. She didn't see Mommy, so now was probably her only chance. She ran across the lawn.

Lucinda charged up the saucer-shaped freighter's entry ramp with her wet hair slapping against her back. "Jedi Skywalker!" She headed right in the tube-like corridor. "Jedi Skywalker!" She ended up in a hold she had seen in holodramas. At least the dejarik table with a circular bench around it and the engineering station that she ended up between were familiar. The galley station on the other side of the hold was new. It hit her and she skidded to a stop on the deck plate. This was the ship that escaped the first Death Star and did something famous with the Kessel Run; not that she could remember what that was. "Astral, I'm on the _Millennium Falcon_." Her voice dropped to a near whisper, and she felt dizzy.

Another man's raised voice echoed from the corridor on the other side of this hold. "I'm fine, Luke. Take Threepio with you!" She didn't recognize his voice.

Jedi Skywalker emerged from that same corridor, still wearing his hike-stained clothes and the puffy welts on his face. "Oh no, your mother finally stopped yelling at me about kidnapping you. You're not stowing in here to start that again."

"I'm not stowing. I just wanted to ask you some questions alone."

He herded her back into the corridor. "You can ask me on the entry ramp, in full sight of everyone."

Lucinda huffed but went along with it. The question was important, and Mommy had pulled a blaster on him. She turned around when she was on the entry ramp.

He sat cross-legged in the doorway where she'd have to climb over him to get back inside. "What's so important to ask me you skipped the dryer cycle?" He smiled at her still-wet hair.

She glanced around, but Mommy was out of sight and everybody else was by the maintenance hangar. "You knew Mommy before I was born."

His smile shifted to a frown. "I think you should ask your mother for the details about that."

"I don't need the details!" She glanced around again, but her raised voice had gained no attention. She knew the difference between classified secrets and Mommy secrets, and what she wanted was the latter. "I just want to know who my father is, if you met them both before I was born."

He winced. "I'm sorry, Luci. It was just your mother and me on that… adventure. She must have met your father after we took our separate escapes." Lucinda's shoulders drooped. "She hasn't told you about him?" he asked.

"She never talks about before I was born." Lucinda huffed again before explaining more. "Just a few things, never about her family or my father, like her entire life started when I was born. And I know that's not how it works." She crossed her arms over her chest and squeezed them tight.

"Children are a new life and change everything. Your mother possibly didn't like her life before you, and that's why she doesn't talk about it. I'm sure, in time, she'll tell you about it."

"Really?"

He nodded. "And if I come across badly in your mother's story, just remember I was young and stupid at the time." He grinned and Lucinda giggled.

"Why did I dream about you?" she asked once that stopped being funny.

"Our minds work out things that have stimulated them in dreams." He shrugged. "The past few days have been very stimulating."

"No, it was when I was little. And it wasn't like those dreams. It was hot and bright and I could feel the wind blowing sand on me. And I saw Artoo shoot your lightsaber to you and you caught it and you were fighting above a pit of teeth and tentacles." His serious expression made her hands mash together, and she squeezed her fingers. "I didn't know it was you, not until the fight in Hyllyard City."

Jedi Skywalker reached out and rested his left hand, his real hand, on top of hers. That stopped the squeezing. His hand swallowed both of hers, but it was warm and callused. His smile was as gentle as his touch. "It's alright, Luci. Maybe the Force didn't want you to be afraid of me when we met."

Her hands didn't twitch, but her stomach sank instead. "Mommy says to hide the Force because bad people will take me for it."

His smile slipped into sadness. "One day, things will be safe enough so you won't have to hide. And maybe you'll learn from me." His blue eyes warmed again. "But that's far enough into the future not to worry about, okay?"

That was what Mommy said any time Lucinda thought about what she would be when she grew up, but no one had ever told her being a Jedi was on the list. "Okay," she finally said.

He patted her hands and pulled back. "I don't think you have to worry about those dreams. Just treat them like you treat the other dreams."

"Right." Lucinda nodded her head. "I will." She let go of her hands and put them behind her back. "Can I see the _Falcon_ now?" She smiled in that way that usually got what she wanted from adults, everybody but Mommy.

He chuckled, and she decided he had a friendly laugh, one that shared the joke with you rather than make you the joke. "You do that very well, but I already told you I don't want your mother mad at me."

"Why would I get mad?"

Lucinda spun around as Jedi Skywalker jumped to his feet and came further down the ramp.

Mommy stopped at the bottom of the entry ramp. She was clean and dry, wearing fresh clothes, and carrying Jedi Skywalker's tabard. She made a dismayed noise. "Luci, did you even try to get dry?"

"I got mostly dry." Lucinda pushed her hair back off her shoulder. It slapped against her shoulder blade. "Are you fixed now?" She frowned up at her mother.

"Yes, I'm no longer bleeding. Can you go get dry and start packing?"

Lucinda's hands mashed together again. "Did you lose this job?" She hadn't yelled at Captain Karrde about keeping people. Did Captain Karrde end Mommy's employment because they crashed the Skiprays?

Mommy shook her head. "No, I still have a job. We're abandoning this base for another one. You've got time to pack everything and neatly."

That was a first. Lucinda couldn't remember having time to pack before fleeing a planet. But she and Mommy had never had anyone drop a megagram of stone on the stormtroopers chasing them before either. "So this is goodbye?"

"Until we meet again." Jedi Skywalker held out his hand. Lucinda shook it, feeling very grown up. "May the Force be with you."

"May the Force be with you too!" She headed down the entry ramp and looked up at Mommy, who waved for her to continue walking away. So Mommy wanted to talk to Jedi Skywalker alone. Well, she didn't think Jedi Skywalker would tattle about asking about her father. She trudged across the clipped grass toward the barracks. A new base to explore. That would be fun. Hopefully, the next planet won't have anything that liked to eat her and Mommy like vornskrs. She should mention that to Captain Karrde, on the ship, when he's not so busy.

* * *

Luke stepped off the entry ramp. Mara was an arms-length away, watching over her shoulder as Lucinda walked back to the barracks. She had cleaned up and now looked like she hadn't just spent three days in the wilderness. He wished he had had time to clean up after the skirmish and getting Lando back to the _Falcon_. Or that his face was less grotesque right now. Hell of a last impression to make, especially after their time in the forest had given him hope that she wouldn't mind seeing him again.

Mara turned her head back to Luke. Her loose red-gold hair gleamed in the sunlight as it settled back into place around her shoulders. "What was so important that she rushed to see you?"

Lucinda had gone to a lot of trouble to not ask about her father in front of Mara. She had to know about her daughter's curiosity, so she had her reasons for not telling. He had no right to judge Mara's decision, and an echo of personal pain was not a reason. Besides, he couldn't explain that mess, not with most of it classified. And he didn't want to piss Mara off about her parenting. Someone had, given how she had reacted over her daughter's blaster skills. She'd never want to see him again if he pissed her off. Lucinda had the right idea.

"She had a Force vision," he said. Mara's face whitened under her freckles and her green eyes bulged. Maybe that wasn't the safer topic. "The skirmish—"

"She saw that?" Mara interrupted. Her hands curled into tight fists. "How is that possible on Myrkr?"

Luke shook his head. "No, the skirmish reminded her of it. She said she had dreamed it years ago, and it sounded like what me and Artoo did with the lightsaber above the Great Pit of Carkoon when we rescued Han. I told her the Force wanted her to not fear me when we met."

"You believe that?" Mara's eyes stopped bulging and narrowed at him, worriedly rather than angrily.

"The future is always in motion, and what Force visions I have had were more metaphorical than showing me actual events. The time I got actual events…." He couldn't flex his right hand like he normally did when he thought about Cloud City, so he rubbed the seam between his prosthetic and his real arm through the cloth of his sleeve. "It didn't go according to the conclusions I had drawn. The only other one who spoke of visions to me, well, I don't think the Battle of Endor went how the Emperor foresaw it either."

Mara took a shaky breath. "So, don't draw conclusions about one-off Force visions?"

Luke gave her a lopsided smile. "If you can help it. I told Lucinda to treat them like her other dreams since she worried more about disobeying your hide the Force directive."

"You don't approve of hiding."

"Training is better."

Mara crossed her arms over her chest. "And you're ready to take Lucinda as your padawan."

Now Luke felt his eyes bug out at her. "Padawan? Lucinda? Before you?"

"What?"

He took a deep breath. "An entire generation, our generation, lost access to what they can do. I want to give that heritage back to those who want it. And the New Republic needs Jedi Knights, adults ready for what the Force has in store for them. Eventually, the students will get younger, but I'm not stealing Lucinda from you. Not now, not ever."

Mara scowled. "If you had actually gotten away in that Skipray, you would've turned around as soon as you found her and brought her back? A Force Sensitive child?"

"Yes," Luke answered and then added honestly, "as soon as I had scrambled back-up, I would have brought her straight back to you."

Mara's scowl cracked as she chuckled. "I can't blame you for wanting back-up."

"Good. So, you could be a Jedi too, if you want." Luke saw Han moving next to the ship docked beside the _Falcon_. His brother-in-law crossed his arms but didn't come closer to the scene at the entry ramp. "Luci said this was a good job you have with Karrde, but you both have the option. And there's time for Luci to decide what she wants. You have my comcode? It's the best way to contact me; I always check the messages." His ears burned at the speed his words were gathering.

"I have your comcode." She smiled and her cheeks pinked. "I'll think about the training, Luke. For both of us."

"Great!" He grinned, even though his puffy and numb cheeks didn't want to stretch. It probably looked goofier than usual.

"Here." She held out his tabard. "I don't want to hold you up. Solo got the rest of your things already."

The pale skin of her hand called out to him. Did he dare? It always worked for Lando. He reached for the tabard and bent, pressing a kiss against her knuckles.

She gasped as she released the material. He looked up while still bent over her hand. Her face was flushed, and she was breathing just as hard as he was. He wanted to make her breathe hard by touching her in other places, but that would be inappropriate without her permission and right now with the audience. He let her pull her hand back as he straightened with his tabard in his own grip. "May the Force be with you, Mara," he said softly.

It took her a moment to speak. "And with you, Luke," she said just as softly. She spun away and headed to the maintenance hangar. 

Her swaying stride drew his gaze, but he saw Han's loose arms stance of shock out of the corner of his eye. Luke pretended to have not seen it as he turned and headed up the entry ramp. They had the entire flight to Coruscant for Han's comments.

* * *

Luke checked on Lando—who had turned his face to the wall of the medbunk and pretended to be asleep already—and the droids before heading to the cockpit, timing it with the ship lift off. "Any problems with the tow cables?" he asked as he slid into the copilot's seat.

"Not so far," Han said as he leaned forward and looked all around them as the _Falcon_ cleared the trees. "The extra weight's not bothering us. We should be all right."

"Good. You expecting company?"

"You never know." Han gave the sky one last look before settling back into his seat and gunning the repulsorlifts. "Karrde said there were still a couple of Chariots and a few speeder bikes unaccounted for. One of them might have figured that a last-ditch suicide run was better than having to go back to the Grand Admiral and report."

Luke stared at him. But Han's hands remained wrapped tight around the controls. "Grand Admiral?" he asked.

Han's lips twisted into an angry sneer. "Yeah. That's who seems to be running the show now for the Empire."

A chill like the night air on Tatooine ran up Luke's back, prickling his skin along the way. "I thought we had accounted for all the Grand Admirals."

He remembered what Mara had told him after he had told her and Karrde the attacks were like kidnappings. _They have a way to exploit them, a way they are so damned confident of they'll risk going after the most famous potential Force users in the galaxy before they're even born._ A Grand Admiral hunting Leia and the twins, and who would hunt Mara and Lucinda as soon as the Imperials learned about them. Why? None of the other warlords had been interested in Force users.

"Me too," Han said to Luke's last aloud comment. "We must have missed one."

Luke felt a surge of awareness and strength fill him before Han finished speaking. As if he were waking from a deep sleep or stepping from a dark room into the light. The Force was again with him.

He breathed deeply and flicked his eyes across the control board for the altimeter. Just over twelve kilometers. Karrde had been right; the ysalamiri reinforced one another. Luke didn't wish the smuggler any ill will after all this, but he had no desire to inform Karrde of that answer either.

"I don't suppose you got a name." His voice had gone soft as he closed his eyes and the sensation worked its way through him.

"Karrde wouldn't give it to me." Han frowned curiously at Luke. "Maybe we can bargain the use of that Star Cruiser he wants for it. You okay?"

"I'm fine." Luke spoke more normally to ease Han's worries. "I just—it's like being able to see again after having been blind."

Han snorted. "Yeah, I know how that is."

"I guess you would." Luke opened his eyes and looked at him. "I didn't get a chance to say this earlier, but thanks for coming after me."

Han waved it aside. "No charge. And _I_ didn't get a chance to say it earlier—" he glanced at Luke again with a smug smirk. "—but even looking like something the proom dragged in, you add the only red-heads on the planet to your collection."

He knew it was coming, but it still spiked his irritation. "I love how everybody says that like I have had a legion of them when there has only ever been the one." His ears burned when he realized what he had admitted. So much for telling no one about Mara.

Han twisted to the other side of the cockpit and reached for the nav computer's controls. "There's no shame in having a type, Luke. But you said a long time ago not to count Shira Brie."

"Brie has never counted; she was an Imperial spy. And she has fallen to the Dark Side. Remember, she likes to be called Lumiya now."

"All that time in the forest made you cranky. You were not this cranky on Dathomir after Teneniel turned you down."

"That's not what happened."

"And you had a thing for red-haired women long before Brie infiltrated or Teneniel…." Han's voice trailed away as he spun back around to look at Luke again. 

Luke stared straight out the viewport. The forest looked rather pleasant from this high up.

"Wait, that was **her**?!" Han exclaimed. "Mara Jade? Where did you meet her? When?"

He had to give Han some kind of answer or Han would start coming up with theories. "I met her after the Battle of Yavin."

"Oh, on one of your teach yourself how to be a Jedi without any help trips?"

Luke nodded, hoping that Han would leave it at that. He had done too much thinking of Grakkus' enslavement of them both this week. He'd rather think of Mara now, curvier and blushing from just a kiss on her hand. A kiss he had given her.

Han turned back to his piloting. The _Falcon_ cleared the atmosphere and sped for deep space. "So the kid's father is long gone?" Luke pursed his lips, but Han continued, "Don't get huffy. You're not about to pull out the courtier stops on a married woman." He chuckled. "Too bad Lando missed that."

Luke's ears had begun to cool but now they heated again. "Lucinda said a Ghent told her that her father abandoned Mara when she was pregnant. Did you meet him?"

"Karrde's slicer, still pretty green, but he knew gossip about me and Chewie that Lando didn't even know. So he might have picked up on that and would be unaware enough to not tell the poor kid." Han glanced at him with a smirk. "What, being an uncle is not enough now? Ready to try your hand at fatherhood?"

"I'd like a chance to take Mara out first," Luke said. He remembered her words again, that she worried that she and her daughter would be kidnapped by the Imperials too. Seeing her again would probably depend on ending that threat.

A light flashed on the control board announcing that the _Falcon_ was far enough from Myrkr's gravity well for the hyperdrive to function. Han nodded at it. "Course's already programmed in; let's get out of here." He wrapped his hand around the central levers and pulled. The stars shifted into starlines through the viewport.

"Where are we going?" Luke asked as he watched the starlines fade into the mottled hyperspace sky. "Coruscant?"

"A little side trip first," Han answered. "I want to swing by Sluis Van shipyards, see if we can get Lando, you, and your X-wing fixed up."

Luke glanced at his brother-in-law's scheming expression. "And maybe find a Star Cruiser to borrow for Karrde?"

Han scowled slightly, annoyed that his tell had been spotted. "Maybe. I mean, Ackbar's got a bunch of stripped-down warships ferrying stuff to the Sluis sector already. No reason why we can't borrow one of them for a couple of days, is there?"

"Probably not." Luke sighed. "Especially if we do get the name of a Grand Admiral out of it." He leaned back in the co-pilot's seat. "Maybe if we had their identity, we would have the reason why behind the kidnapping attempts."

Han's presence went grim. "The Minister of State and her babies gives them leverage over the New Republic."

Luke shook his head. "Both Karrde and Mara focused on the Imperials wanting Force users. Mara's especially frightened of her own daughter getting caught too." He remembered the fear and anger in her green eyes when she threatened to shoot him with the stormtroopers meters away searching the wrecks. "If it was just leverage over the New Republic, they'd be going after the families of all Inner Council members."

"And nobody but us have been threatened." Han clenched his teeth like he was chewing on the idea. He turned his seat to face Luke. "Say the fake _Falcon_ on Bpfassh worked, and they now have Leia and the twins. Leia's not going to agree to help them, so that leaves them with two babies that have to grow and train. Right?"

Luke turned the co-pilot's seat to face him. "Right."

"So who's going to train them without you, without Leia?"

The answer was already in Han's suspicious mind, but Luke said it in the cockpit. "A Force user that has fallen to the Dark Side. Someone's looking for an apprentice, probably made a deal with the Imperials as soon as the HoloNet broke the news Leia was pregnant."

"Shavit." Han's face whitened. "Leia suggested they might have a Dark Jedi on Bpfassh, right before our gray friends showed up with blasters. That could be how the Imperials are coordinating their attacks without any transmissions was her theory."

"Leia didn't mention that to me back on Nkllon."

Han rubbed his fingers over his lips. "I forgot about it too. Funny how a Star Destroyer's arrival just makes you forget." He shook his head. "Did Mara have any ideas on who has teamed up with the mysterious Grand Admiral?"

Luke shook his head. "She never said. She would have, if she knew."

"You're sure of that?" Luke nodded. "Anything from the Force?" Han blinked with an expression that he couldn't believe he asked that.

Luke didn't rub it in. "No, but I haven't meditated on the idea. Maybe it is Lumiya. She could have decided kidnapping is the only way she can be a mom."

"Nobody has seen her since the Nagai-Tof War. What about the guy behind Lord Shadowspawn?"

"I think the meltmassif surge/feedback killed him, but his ship was lost in hyperspace." Luke shivered. He had barely defeated both of them on his own. "Maybe we shouldn't bother with Sluis Van, then. We can head to Coruscant and start some intelligence searches. Lando's hurting, but he's not in any danger."

Han shook his head. "No, I want to get him taken care of —and you too, buddy, how's your hand?" He glanced down at Luke's right.

Luke sighed and looked down at it too. "It's completely numb now and I can't move it."

"When we hit Coruscant, we're going to hit it running. So enjoy Sluis Van while you can. It'll probably be the last peace and quiet we'll get for a while."

Luke didn't sigh. It would give him time to meditate on the next step to take. If Coruscant was as bad as Han felt it was, he probably wouldn't have time once they reached it. But he couldn't stay on Coruscant long. If those who used the Dark Side of the Force were attacking again, he needed help. He had to find the voice who spoke to him during the battle at Nkllon and get his help. That meant chasing down the C'baoth rumor as soon as possible. "The more things change; the more they stay the same. But a break sounds nice." He stood up. "I'm going to get cleaned up."

**Author's Note:**

> If a scene from Timothy Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy doesn't show up here, it did happen but unaltered by my changes.


End file.
